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THE  LIBRARY 

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THE 


HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


MARRIAGE; 


POLYGAMY  AND  MONOGAMY  COMPARED. 


BY  A  CHRISTIAN  PHILANTHROPIST. 


"  There  shall  be  no  widows  in  the  land,  for  T  will  marry  them  all; 
there  shall  be  no  orphans,  for  I  will  father  them  all." 

—  Old  Play. 


BOSTON: 

JAMES  CAMPBELL,  18  TREMONT  STREET. 

1869. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1869,  by 

JAMES  CAMPBELL, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massa- 
chusetts. 


BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 


I^VOOATIOK 


I  HAVE  chosen  an  "  adventurous  "  theme,  —  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  great  passion,  an  analysis  of  the  primary 
laws  of  marriage,  and  an  examination  and  comparison 
of  antagonistic  systems  of  social  life,  — 

•'  Things  unattempted  yet  in  prose  or  rhyme. 

And  chiefly  thou,  O  Spirit,  that  dost  prefer 
Before  all  temples  th'  upright  heart  and  pure, 
Instruct  me,  for  thou  know'st :  thou  from  the  first 
Wast  present,  and,  with  mighty  wings  outspread. 
Dove-like  sat'st  brooding  on  the  vast  abyss, 
And  mad'st  it  pregnant.    "What  in  me  is  dark, 
Illumine  I  what  is  low,  raise  and  support  I 
That  to  the  height  of  this  great  argument 
I  may  assert  eternal  providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men." 


Advertisement. 


Opinions  of  Eminent  Literary  Men. 


Of  Notices  received  from  Competent  Judges  to  whom 
this  work  has  beea  submitted  we  insert  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

Fkom  the  Hon.  G.  W.  Cuktis,  M.A., 
Professor  of  Recent  Literature  in  Cornell  Universitij. 
I  have  read  the  proof-sheets  of  "  The  History  and  Philos- 
ophy OF  Marriage,"  in  which  the  author  treats  a  very  diffi- 
cult and  delicate  subject  with  knowledge,  candor,  and  evident 
honesty  of  pui-pose.  It  is  the  contribution  of  an  argument, 
usually  wholly  unconsidered,  to  the  discussion  of  a  question 
which  challenges  the  grave  attention  of  civilization,  and  which 
Mr.  Lecky  treats  in  his  recent  "■  History  of  European  Morals,''* 
reaching,  however,  a  conclusion  directly  opposed  to  that  of  this 
little  work.  This  book  has  the  curious  distinction  of  being  a 
Christian  plea  for  polygamy.  I  do  not  agree  with  its  conclusions ; 
but  I  cannot  quarrel  with  its  spirit. 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS. 
July  9, 1869. 


From  F.  B.  Sanborn,  M.A., 
Associate  Editor  of  the  Springfield  Republican. 

The  author  of  "  The  History  and  Philosophy  of  Mar- 
riage "  some  time  since  submitted  his  manuscript  to  my  exam- 
ination,  and  I  have  read,  with  interest,  the  greater  part  of  the 
work.  It  advances  opinions  with  which  I  cannot  agree  ;  ancL 
these  are  based  upon  premises  that  I  should  very  much  question ; 
but  as  the  expression  of  a  sincere  conviction  founded  on  exten- 
sive observation  and  reading,  it  seems  to  me  entitled  to  atten- 
tion, respect,  and  refutation,  by  those  competent  to  meet  the 
arguments  presented  with  other  arguments,  and  not  with  mere 
contradiction.  F.  B.  SANBORN. 

Springfield,  Aug.  13, 1869. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.— Introductory. 

PAOK. 

Audi  Alteram  Partem 9 

Some  Account  of  the  Author 14 

What  Missionaries  say  of  Polygamy 17 

The  Indian  Chief  and  his  two  Wives 20 

My  Reflections  upon  this  Report .21 

Why  I  have  written  this  Book 23- 

Laws  of  God  and  Nature  defined  .......  25' 


CHAPTER  n.  —  Primary  Laws  of  Love. 

Love  like  Electricity 28 

Love  refines  and  ennobles 30 

Love  inherent  to  all 32 

Love  is  the  Right  of  all 36 

Love  must  be  limited  by  Chastity  .       .       • 37 

Marriage  constitutes  the  Proper  Limit  ......  38 


CHAPTER  in.— Primary  Laws  op  Marriage. 

Marriage  defined 40 

Marriage  beneficial 41 

5 


b  CONTENTS. 

All  are  entitled  to  its  Benefits 42 

These  are  denied  to  many 44 

More  Women  than  Men 45 

Women  mature  earlier  than  Men 49 

Many  Men  refuse  to  marry 50 

Few  Women  decline  Marriage 51 

Monogamy  prevents  Marriage 53 

The  Marriage  Ceremony 55 


CHAPTER  IV.  — Origin  of  Polygamy. 

Prejudices  to  be  overcome 57 

Polygamy  is  not  Barbarism 58 

Why  God  made  but  one  Woman 62 

Polygamy  taught  in  the  Bible 63 

Monogamy  of  Bishops  and  Deacons 71 

Dr.  McKnight's  Commentary 72 

Polygamy  approved  of  Q-od 76 


CHAPTER  V.  —  Origin  of  Monogamy. 

Monogamy  the  Daughter  of  Paganism  and  Romanism       .       .  78 

Impurity  of  Q-reek  and  Roman  Morals 79 

Ancient  Roman  Marriages  hot  Permanent 81 

Consequences  of  their  Frequent  Divorces 82 

Monogamy  and  Private  Life  of  the  Caesars 84 

Julius  Caesar 88 

Augustus  .       . 91 

Tiberius 98 

CaUgula 102 

Claudius 106 

Nero 112 


CONTENTS.  * 

CHAPTER  VI.  —  Monogamy  after  the  Introduction  of 
Christianity. 

Gnosticism  in  the  First  Century 122 

Q-nosticism  and  Platonism  of  the  Second  Century       .        .        .124 

Monogamy  and  Christianity  in  the  Third  and  Fourth  Centuries.  127 

Constantine  and  Theodosius 129 

Asceticism  and  Monasticism .        .  131 

Mediaeval  Superstition  and  Immorality 133 

Immutability  of  the  Roman  Church       ......  136 


CHAPTER  vn.— Monogamy  as  it  Is. 

Monogamy  is  Romanism  still .       .144 

Impurity  of  Modem  Monogamy 151 

The  Higher  Law  of  Christian  Charity 153 

Is  the  "  Social  Evil "  preventible  ? 156 

Monogamy  occasions  Seduction  and  Ruin 159 

The  Harlot's  Progress 163 

Monogamy  causes  Religion  to  be  hated 166 

Great  Men  are  always  Polygamists 172 

Hypocrisy  of  Monogamy         .     ' 175 


CHAPTER  vni.  —  Relation  of  Monogamy  to  Crime. 

Marriage  prevents  Crime  .        .              ......  178 

Adultery 180 

Murder 186 

Divorce .       .       .189 

Procuring  Abortion 194 

Fecundity  ought  to  be  promoted 199 

Birth-Rate  in  Massachusetts 204 


8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX.  — Objections  to  Polygamy. 

Does  Polygamy  cause  Jealousy  ? 208 

Is  Polygamy  degrading  ? 209 

Women's  Rights .210 

Masculine  Power  and  Feminine  Complaisance     •       .       .       .  213 

May  Women  have  a  Plurality  of  Husbands  ?        .        .        .        .  216 

Marriage  like  the  Law  of  Gravitation 217 

Masculine  Responsibility  and  Care 218 


APPENDIX.— Notices  and  Reviews. 

Rev.  Dr.  Martin  Madan's  "  Thelyphthora  " 224 

Lecky's  "History  of  European  Morals" 230 

Lea's  "  Historical  Sketch  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy "      .       .       .252 
Conybeare  and  Howson's  Note  on  "  the  One  Wife  "  of  a  Bishop    253 


THE    HISTOET 

AND 

PHILOSOPHY   OF  MAEEIAGB. 


CHAPTER    I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

AUDI    ALTERAM    PARTEM. 

Philosophy  takes  nothing  for  granted.  It 
doubts  all  things  that  it  may  prove  all  things. 
The  marriage  question  is  a  proper  subject  of 
philosophical  inquiry,  involving  an  examination 
and  analysis  of  both  polygamy  and  monogamy. 
Of  the  latter  form  of  marriage  the  Christian 
world  has  known  too  much,  and  of  the  former  too 
little,  to  have  felt,  hitherto,  the  need  of  any  analysis 
of  either.  We  have  inherited  our  monogamy,  oiN,,^^ 
the  marriage  system  which  restricts  each  man  to 
one  wife  only,  and  have  practised  it  as  a  matter  of 


10  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

course,  without  any  special  examination  or  inquiry : 
so  that  we  really  know  but  little  concerning  its 
origin  or  its  early  history ;  while  we  know  still 
less  of  the  system  of  polygamy.  We  read  some- 
thing of  it  in  the  Bible  and  in  the  history  of 
Eastern  nations,  and  we  learn  something  more  from 
the  reports  of  modern  travellers ;  and  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  what  we  know  of  it  has  come  to  us 
in  such  a  form  as  to  prejudice  our  minds  against 
it.  This  prejudice  is  unfavorable  to  a  just  and 
candid  philosophical  inquiry ;  and  while  pursuing 
this  inquiry,  let  us  hold  this  prejudice  in  abeyance. 
Let  us  not  forget  that  what  we  have  seen  of  this 
system  is  in  its  most  unfavorable  aspects.  Most 
travellers  carry  their  native  prejudices  abroad,  and 
look  upon  the  customs  of  distant  countries  with 
less  astonishment  than  contempt.  And  they  re- 
member, when  writing  up  their  accounts  of  those 
countries,  that  their  books  are  made  to  be  sold  at 
home ;  and  they  must  not  institute  comparisons 
unfavorable  to  their  own  land,  but  must  flatter  the 
conceit  of  their  fellow-countrymen  by  assuring 
them  that  their  own  social  and  political  institu- 
tions are  vastly  better  than  those  of  other  lands. 


OF  MARRIAGE. 


So,  also,  with  history :  it  presents  human  affairs 
in  a  perspective  view,  painting  its  roughest  moun- 
tains with  distinct  exactness,  but  casting  its  peace- 
ful plains  quite  into  the  shade.  It  devotes  a  hun- 
dred pages  to  the  details  of  wars  and  intrigues, 
illustrating  the  crimes  of  men,  in  proportion  to  a 
single  page  of  descriptions  of  common  life  and  do- 
mestic tranquillity,  illustrating  their  virtues. 

If  the  writer,  on  the  contrary,  shall  seem  preju- 
diced in  favor  of  polygamy,  let  it  be  attributed  to 
his  love  of  fair  play,  and  his  desire  to  let  both 
sides  be  heard,  rather  than  to  any  undue  bias  of 
mind  preventing  him  from  doing  equal  justice  to 
the  arguments  in  favor  of  either  system. 

It  is  attested  and  proved  by  competent  authority, 
which  no  one  doubts,  that  polygamy,  or  that  social 
system  which  permits  a  plurality  of  wives,  has 
always  prevailed  in  most  countries  and  in  all  ages 
of  the  world,  from  time  immemorial  ;  but  this 
form  of  marriage,  being  foreign  to  the  customs  of 
modern  Europe  and  her  colonies  in  America,  is 
very  naturally  regarded  throughout  these  enlight- 
ened regions  as  something  heathenish  and  barba- 
rous.    And  modern  writers,  whose  works  are  the 


11  "^' 

4. 


12  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

exponents  of  European  civilization,  have  hitherto 
said  every  thing  against  it,  and  nothing  for  it. 
But  they  have  condemned  it  almost  without  ex- 
amination or  debate,  rather  because  it  is  strange 
than  because  they  have  proved  it  to  be  at  fault. 
No  one  has  given  to  the  subject  the  time  and  re- 
search necessary  to  its  fair  elucidation.  But  as  a 
venerable  institution  the  social  system  of  polygamy 
does  not  deserve  such  supercilious  treatment. 
Such  treatment,  besides  being  unjust,  is  unphilosoph- 
ical,  and  unworthy  a  liberal  and  an  enlightened 
age.  Its  great  antiquity  alone  should  entitle  it  to 
sufficient  respect  to  be  heard,  at  least,  in  its  own 
defence.  It  constitutes  an  important  part  of  hu- 
man history.  It  is  a  great  fact  that  cannot  be 
ignored ;  and  as  such,  it  must  be  studied  and 
known.  To  insist  upon  the  condemnation  of  this 
system,  without  hearing  its  defence,  is  oppression. 
It  is  even  the  worst  kind  of  oppression  ;  for,  in  such 
case,  it  must  be  allied  with  ignorance  and  bigotry. 
But  if  there  ever  was  a  time,  when  polygamy 
could  properly  be  thrust  aside  with  a  sneer,  and  it 
was  satisfactory  to  Christian  justice  to  condemn  it 
unheard  and  unexamined,  it  can  be  so  no  longer ; 


OF  MARRIAGE.  13 

for,  with  the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge  and 
the  increased  facilities  of  modern  intercourse,  our 
speculative  inquiries  are  seeking  a  range  of  cos- 
mopolitan extent,  and  we  are  brought  into  daily 
contact  with  the  opinions  and  the  practices  of  the 
antipodes.  If  we  disapprove  of  their  practices  we 
should  be  prepared  to  make  substantial  objections 
to  them ;  and  if  we  wish  to  teach  them  our  own, 
we  should  be  able  to  give  equally  substantial  rea^ 
sons.  If  the  advocates  of  polygamy  are  in  the 
minority  in  the  Christian  world,  let  the  common 
rights  of  the  minority  be  granted  them,  —  freedom 
of  debate  and  the  privilege  of  protest ;  and  let 
their  solemn  protest  be  listened  to  with  respect, 
and  be  spread  upon  the  current  records  of  the 
day.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  if  those  who  prac- 
tise this  ancient  system  do  constitute  the  majority 
of  mankind,  it  cannot  be  either  uninteresting  or 
unimportant  to  inquire  what  has  made  it  so  nearly 
universal,  and  caused  it  to  be  adopted  by  so  many 
different  nations,  and  even  different  races  of  men, 
among  whom  are,  no  doubt,  some  persons  who  are 
justly  distinguished  for  their  wisdom,  their  piety, 
and  their  humanity. 


14  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

The  writer  is  not  aware  that  any  former  attempt 
has  been  made  in  this  country  to  analyze  and 
explain  the  social  system  of  polygamy,  or  that 
any  works  written  abroad  for  this  purpose  have 
ever  been  current  here ;  at  least,  he  has  not  been 
able  to  obtain  any,*  and  thus  to  avail  himself 
of  their  assistance.  While,  therefore,  the  subject- 
matter  of  this  essay  is  of  the  most  venerable  anti- 
quity, the  manner  of  its  discussion  must  be  entirely 
new ;  and  not  only  can  the  author  claim  the  singu- 
lar merit  of  originality,  but  the  reader  can  be 
assured  of  the  no  less  singular  zest  of  novelty. 

SOME    ACCOUNT   OF   THE    AUTHOR.  " 

Almost  everybody  who  takes  up  a  new  book  is 
curious  to  know  something  of  the  writer ;  of  his 
special  qualifications  for  his  work,  of  his  opportu- 
nities of  acquiring  a  thorough  knowledge  of  his 
subject,  and  of  the  standpoint  from  which  he  views 
it.  He  will,  therefore,  proceed  at  once  to  give  some 
account  of  himself,  and  how  he  came  to  write  this 
work.  And  the  courteous  reader  will  now  please 
permit  him  to  drop  the  indirect  style  of  address  so 

*  See  Appendix. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  15 

common  among  writers,  and  to  introduce  himself 
by  speaking  in  the  first  person.  I  am  a  native  of 
New  England,  and  was  brought  up  a  strict  Puritan. 
My  father  always  declared  his  intention  to  educate 
me  for  the  law,  and  I  took  to  learning  as  readily 
as  most  boys  of  my  age.  I  was  graduated  from 
college  almost  forty  years  ago,  and  had  nearly 
completed  my  professional  studies,  when  my  health 
suddenly  broke  down  ;  and  I  then  discovered  that 
I  had  been  bestowing  all  my  care  upon  the  imp^vc- 
ment  of  the  mind,  to  the  total  neglect  of  the  health- 
fulness  of  the  body.  And  this,  I  fancy,  was  only  a 
common  defect  at  that  time,  in  our  American,  or, 
at  least,  our  New-England,  system  of  education. 
The  physicians  having  prescribed  a  voyage  at  sea 
and  a  residence  of  some  months  in  a  tropical 
climate,  the  influence  of  my  friends  obtained  a  for- 
eign situation  for  me  in  one  of  our  Boston  houses 
having  an  extensive  business  in  India ;  and  I  be- 
came their  clerk,  and  afterwards  their  factor.  The 
engagements  then  entered  into  could  not  easily  be 
broken  off,  and  I  have  continued  in  them  many 
years ;  and  having  seen  all  the  continents  of  the 
globe,   and  many  islands  of  the  sea,  and  having 


>^ 


16  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

observed  human  society  in  every  climate  and  in 
every  social  condition,  I  have  at  length  returned  to 
my  native  land,  an  older,  and,  I  hope,  a  wiser  man. 
Having  become  an  active  member  of  the  church  in 
my  youth,  I  did  not  renounce  my  Christian  charac- 
ter abroad,  but  have  always  afforded  such  encour- 
agement and  assistance  as  I  was  able,  to  our  Ameri- 
can and  English  missionaries,  whenever  I  fell  in 
with  them.  In  fact,  I  had  long  cherished  a  pro- 
found respect  and  admiration  for  the  missionary 
enterprise  ;  and,  notwithstanding  my  father's  wish 
to  educate  me  for  the  law,  I  had,  during  my  course 
of  study,  seriously  offered  myself  as  a  candidate  for 
missionary  labor  ;  and,  had  I  been  deemed  worthy 
of  that  honor,  I  should,  no  doubt,  have  devoted  my 
life  to  that  service.  But  Providence  did  not  so 
order  it.  Yet  when  I  went  abroad,  my  early  predp 
lections  easily  reconciled  me  to  the  pain  of  leav- 
ing my  native  land,  to  the  disappointment  which  I 
experienced  in  renouncing  a  career  of  professional 
and  literary  honors,  and  readily  introduced  me  to 
the  society  of  those  devoted  missionaries  whom  I 
would  fain  have  chosen  for  my  fellow-laborers 
and  life-companions.     I  was  very  much  surprised, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  17 

however,  soon  after  my  first  acquaintance  with 
them,  to  learn  that,  under  certain  circumstances, 
they  allowed  the  members  of  the  native  Christian 
churches  a  plurality  of  wives.  As  I  had  been 
educated  a  strict  monogamist,  in  New  England,  I 
had  never  once  dreamed  that  any  other  social  sys- 
tem than  monogamy  could  be  possible  among 
Christian  people,  anywhere ;  and  I  remonstrated 
with  the  missionaries  for  permitting  polygamy 
among  their  converts,  under  any  circumstances 
whatever. 

WHAT    THE    MISSIONARIES    SAY    ABOUT    POLYGAMY. 

I  was  answered  by  them  that  the  Bible  has  not^ 
forbidden  it,  but,  on  the  contrary,  has  recognized 
it,  as  sometimes  lawful  and  proper ;  and  although 
they  themselves  did  not  encourage  it,  they  could 
not  positively  prohibit  it.  I  then  endeavored  to  recol- 
lect some  prohibition  in  the  Bible,  but  could  neither 
recollect  nor  find  one  there.  On  the  contrary,  to  my 
own  astonishment,  after  a  careful  examination  of 
the  Sacred  Scriptures,  I  did  find  therein  many  things 
to  favor  it.  The  missionaries  also  said  that  their 
experience  had  taught  them  that  the  converting 
2 


18  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

grace  of  God  was  granted  to  those  living  in  polyg- 
amy as  often  as  to  others ;  the  natives  themselves 
attach  no  moral  reproach  to  it ;  "  and,"  said  the 
missionaries,  "  if  such  persons  give  evidence  of 
genuine  conversion,  '  Can  any  man  forbid  water, 
that  they  should  not  be  baptized,  who  have  received 
the  grace  of  God  as  well  as  we  ? '  Besides," 
they  added,  "  if  they  are  not  received  and  recog- 
nized as  Christians,  how  shall  we  dispose  of  them? 
Shall  we  refuse  them  our  fellowship,  and  send 
them  back  again  to  their  idolatry  ?  This  would  be 
no  less  unchristian  than  unkind.  Shall  we  compel 
them  to  put  away  all  their  wives,  but  those  first 
married,  and  then  receive  them  into  the  church? 
But  in  many  cases  this  would  be  impracticable,  in 
others  unjust  in  all,  cruel.  For  the  chastity  of  the 
women  hitherto  irreproachable  would  be  tarnished 
by  their  repudiation  :  they  would  often  be  left  with- 
out a  home  and  without  support ;  and,  like  other  dis- 
graced and  destitute  women  of  all  lands,  they  would 
be  thrust  upon  a  life  of  infamy  and  vice.  Who," 
continued  they,  "  shall  dare  assume  the  responsi- 
bility of  separating  wife  from  husband,  and  children 
from  parents?  since  the  Bible  expressly  forbids  a 


OF  MARRIAGE.  19 

man  to  divorce  his  wife,  for  any  cause,  except 
unfaithfulness  to  her  marriage  vow:  God  is  not 
said  in  the  Bible  to  hate  polygamy,  but  it  says 
there  that  '  he  hateth  putting  away.'  " 

I  need  not  say  that  I  was  completely  disarmed 
and  silenced  by  this  array  of  "  the  law  and  the  tes-  J 
/  timony  ;  "  and  was  compelled,  by  their  arguments, 
to  admit  that  their  course  was  one  of  equal  justice 
and  mercy.  I  soon  learned,  however,  that  the  rules 
of  the  missionaries  are  by  no  means  uniform  upon 
this  question.  Many  of  them,  particularly  those 
who  possess  a  great  regard  for  the  authority  and 
the  dogmas  of  the  church,  and  who  reason  rather 
from  the  "  tradition  of  the  elders,"  than  from  the 
laws  of  Nature  or  of  God,  have  rigidly  enforced 
monogamy  among  their  converts ;  and  if  any  one 
becomes  a  Christian  while  living  in  polygamy,  such 
missionaries  require  him  to  repudiate  all  his  wives 
but  one.  It  was  not  many  months  after  the  conver- 
sation above  related  that  one  of  the  missionaries 
called  my  attention  to  a  religious  journal  that  he 
had  just  received  from  Boston,  contairfing  the  report 
of  certain  missionaries  among  the  North-American 
Indians,  giving  an  account  of  the  conversion  of  an 
old  and  influential  chief. 


20  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

THE    INDIAN   CHIEF   AND   HIS   TWO   WIVES. 

This  chief  at  the  time  of  his  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity was  living  with  two  wives.  The  one  first 
married  was  now  aged,  blind,  and  childless.  The 
other  was  young,  attractive,  healthful,  and  the 
mother  of  one  fine  boy.  One  of  these  wives  the 
missionaries  required  him  to  put  away,  as  an  indis- 
pensable requisite  to  baptism  and  church-member- 
ship. The  old  chief,  after  careful  deliberation, 
could  not  decide  which  one  to  repudiate.  The  first 
he  was  bound  by  every  honorable  motive  "  to  love 
and  to  cherish,"  especially  on  account  of  her  age 
and  infirmity ;  while  the  other  was  devotedly  at- 
tached to  him,  and  was  the  mother  of  his  only  child 
and  heir,  which  he  could  not  give  up,  and  from 
which  he  could  not  separate  the  mother.  He,  there- 
fore, submitted  the  case  to  the  missionaries  to  de- 
cide which  one  of  them  he  should  put  away.  They 
decided  against  the  younger  one.  And  as  he  was 
old  himself  and  his  other  wife  was  barren,  that  she 
must  also  give  up  her  child.  This  mandate  was 
obeyed  with  martyr-like  fortitude,  which  nothing  but 
the  strongest  religious  motives  could  have  inspired  ; 


OF   MARRIAGE.  21 

opposed,  as  it  was,  to  every  natural  sentiment  of 
love  and  honor.  And  thus,  in  one  hour,  was  that 
young  wife  and  mother  deprived  of  her  husband, 
her  child,  her  character,  and  her  home  ;  and  sent 
away  a  bereaved  and  lonely  outcast  into  the  wide 
world.  The  report  which  the  missionaries  them- 
selves gave  of  this  affair  closed  by  saying  that  the 
repudiated  wife  and  bereaved  mother  soon  died  in- 
consolable and  broken-hearted. 

MY   OWN   REFLECTIONS   UPON   THIS   REPORT. 

On  reading  this  report,  I  could  not  forbear  con- 
trasting their  mode  of  treating  polygamy  with  that 
of  the  missionaries  in  the  East,  which  had  come 
under  my  own  observation  there,  and  which  I  had, 
at  first,  so  severely  criticised.  I  now  began  to  blush 
at  my  own  late  ignorance  and  bigotry.  And  the 
more  I  thought  of  the  ecclesiastical  tyranny  of  the 
North- American  missionaries,  the  higher  rose  my 
indignation  against  it.  I  could  not  fail  to  see  that 
their  narrow  attachment  to  their  own  social  system 
had  made  them  judicially  blind  to  the  merits  of  any 
other ;  and  that  they  were  more  ignorant  of  the 
true  spirit  of  Christianity  as  well  as  of  the  nat- 


22  HISTORY   AND    PHILOSOPHY 

ural  rights  of  man  concerning  the  laws  of  marriage, 
than  even  the  poor  savages  themselves.  Yet  they 
undoubtedly  supposed  they  were  doing  God  essential 
service  by  this  act  of  inhumanity ;  just  as  our  fa- 
thers did  when  they  hanged  and  burned  honest  men 
because  they  worshipped  God  in  a  different  manner, 
and  entertained  different  views  of  divine  truth,  from 
themselves.  Their  mistake  is  one  which  has  always 
been  too  common,  and  from  which  no  one,  perhaps, 
is  altogether  free.  It  consists  in  assuming  that 
because  we  are  honest  in  our  belief,  and  mean  to  be 
right,  others  who  essentially  differ  from  us  are  dis- 
honest and  wrong  ;  and  in  presuming  to  judge  the 
conduct  of  others  by  what  we  feel  to  he  right,  i.e., ) 
by  our  own  standard  of  morality,  instead  of  judging 
them  by  what  we  know  to  be  right,  according  to  the  . 
infallible  standard  of  divine  truth. 

These  reflections  led  me  to  give  the  whole  sub- 
ject of  marriage,  in  respect  to  its  divine  and  nat- 
ural laws,  as  thorough  and  as  critical  an  investiga- 
tion as  my  abilities  and  advantages  enabled  me  to 
do  ;  and  to  inquire  into  the  origin  and  the  moral 
tendencies  of  the  two  social  systems  of  monogamy 
and  polygamy. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  23 

I  have  now  pursued  this  investigation  many  years, 
and  have  become  convinced  that  polygamy  is  not 
always  an  immorality ;  that  sometimes  a  man  may 
innocently  have  more  than  one  woman ;  and  then 
that  it  is  their  right  to  be  married  to  him,  and  his 
duty  to  love  and  cherish  them  for  better  for  worse, 
for  richer  for  poorer,  in  sickness  and  in  health,  till 
death  shall  part  them. 

WHY   I   HAVE   WRITTEN   THIS    BOOK. 

I  am  unwilling  to  leave  the  world  without  hav- 
ing given  it  the  benefit  of  these  reflections.  All 
truth  is  important.  If  these  views  are  true,  they 
ought  to  be  known  ;  if  they  are  not  true  let  them  be 
refuted.  If  the  prejudices  of  modern  Christians 
are  opposed  to  the  social  system  which  their  ancient 
brethren,  the  earliest  saints  and  patriarchs,  prac- 
tised in  the  good  old  days  of  Bible  truth  and  pasto- 
ral simplicity,  I  believe  that  these  prejudices  are 
neither  natural  nor  inveterate  ;  but  that  they  have 
been  induced  by  the  corrupted  Christianity  of  the 
mediaeval  priesthood,  and  that  they  will  be  removed 
when  Christian  people  become  better  informed  ;  and 
if  it  be  necessary  for  me  to  sacrifice  my  own   ease 


24  HISTORT  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

and  my  own  credit,  in  attempting  to  remove  them, 
I  shall  only  suffer  the  common  lot  of  all  reformers  be- 
fore me.  Yet  I  scarcely  expect  to  see  any  immediate 
result  of  my  labors.  It  is  a  melancholy  and  an  hu- 
miliating fact  that  the  opinions  of  most  people  are  de- 
termined more  by  what  others  around  them  think  and 
say  than  by  what  they  believe  themselves.  They  are 
not  accustomed  to  the  proper  exercise  of  their  own 
reason,  and  do  not  follow  the  convictions  of  their 
own  minds.  Yet  there  are  some  who  dare  to  think 
and  act  for  themselves  ;  and  into  the  hands  of  a  few 
such  I  doubt  not  these  pages  will  fall :  and  to  all 
such  I  most  heartily  commend  them.  To  an  active 
and  an  ingenuous  mind  there  is  no  pursuit  more 
fascinating  than  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  no  pleas- 
ure more  exquisite  than  the  discovery  of  truth.  All 
those  who  would  enjoy  this  pleasure  in  its  highest 
sense  must  love  Truth  for  herself  alone  ;  they  must 
emancipate  themselves  from  the  trammels  of  preju- 
dice and  public  opinion,  and  dare  to  follow  Truth 
wherever  she  may  lead.  And  I  make  no  further 
apology  for  calling  the  attention  of  an  intelligent 
age  to  a  new  examination  of  an  old  institution. 
Truth  dreads  no  scrutiny ;  shields  herself  behind  no 


OF  MAHniAGE.  25 

breastwork  of  established  custom  or  of  respectable 
authority,  but  proudly  stands  upon  her  own,  merits. 
I  will  not  despair,  therefore,  of  gaining  the  atten- 
tion of  every  lover  of  the  truth  while  I  attempt  to 
develop  and  demonstrate  the  laws  of  God  and  of 
nature  upon  the  important  subjects  of  love  and  mar- 
riage, and  to  apply  those  laws  to  the  two  systems 
of  monogamy  and  polygamy. 

THE  LAWS  OF  GOD  AND  OP  NATURE  ;  THE  TERMS 
DEFINED. 

To  prevent  misconception  of  the  meaning  in- 
tended to  be  conveyed  by  these  terms,  it  is  proper 
to  state,  that,  by  the  laws  of  God,  I  mean  the  writ- 
ten laws  contained  in  the  Holy  Bible ;  which  I 
believe  to  be  the  most  perfect  revelation  of  the 
divine  will  and  God's  inestimable  gift  to  man. 
The  laws  by  which  the  universe  subsists,  embracing 
those  of  mind  as  well  as  those  of  matter,  are  un- 
doubtedly the  laws  of  God  also  ;  but  we  call  them, 
by  way  of  distinction,  the  laws  of  nature  ;  because 
it  is  only  by  a  diligent  study  of  nature,  and  by  rea- 
soning from  cause  to  effect  and  from  effect  to  cause, 
that  they  can  be  determined,  yet  when  determined 


26  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

they  are  always  found  to  harmonize  with  each  other 
and  also  with  the  written  law,  which  they  may 
safely  and  properly  be  employed  to  illustrate  and 
explain. 

Both  these  classes  of  law  differ  materially  from 
the  civil  law,  or  the  laws  of  States  and  nations  ;  es-A^ 
pecially  in  these  respects :  the  former  are  always 
harmonious  with  each  other,  and  equally  valid  at 
all  times  and  places,  and  are,  therefore,  infallible 
and  unchangeable.     The  latter  are  always  conflict- . 
ing  with  and  often  contradictory  to  one  another ;' 
and  are  constantly  being  altered,  amended,  and  re- 
pealed ;  and,  although  founded  upon  truth,  in  gen-'^N^ 
eral,  and  intended  for  the  public  good,  and  there- 
fore entitled  to  our  respect  and  obedience,  they  are 
so  only  in  a  qualified  sense,  far  inferior  to  that  pro- 
found respect  and  implicit  obedience  due  to  divine 
and  natural  law. 

In  my  analysis  of  the  laws  of  love  and  marriage 
on  which  depends  the  mutual  relation  of  the  two 
sexes,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  speak  of  that  relation 
with  unusual  familiarity  ;  even  though  I  may  some- 
times offend  our  modern  notions  of  modesty  and 
propriety  —  notions  which  I  shall  not  now  stop  to 


OF  MARRIAGE.  27 

discuss,  whether  they  be  true  or  false ;  it  matters 
not.  Truth  rises  superior  to  every  consideration  of 
fastidiousness,  and  it  is  high  time  that  these  truths 
should  be  demonstrated.  Yet  it  shall  be  my  care 
so  to  treat  them  as  not  to  offend  true  modesty  un- 
necessarily :  'puris  omnia  pura. 


28  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  PRIMARY  LAWS  OF  LOVE. 
LOVE    LIKE   ELECTKICITY. 

Among  all  the  inherent  properties  of  mankind, 
none  is  more  important  than  that  of  love  ;  and  no 
one  more  clearly  evinces  the  wisdom  and  benevo- 
lence of  his  Creator.  Love,  in  its  primary  sense, 
to  which  it  will  be  restricted  in  this  treatise,  is  the 
mutual  attraction  of  the  two  sexes.  It  exists  in  all 
persons,  either  as  a  sensibility  or  a  passion.  It  is 
a  sensibility  when  in  a  state  of  rest,  or  when  exer- 
cised towards  the  whole  of  the  opposite  sex  indis- 
criminately ;  but  it  is  a  passion  when  strongly 
excited  and  when  exercised  towards  particular 
individuals.  And  it  is  as  truly  and  fundamentally 
a  law  of  human  nature  as  electricity  is  of  material 
nature,  —  to  which  it  bears  a  curious  analogy. 
We  can  scarcely  reason  with  more  certainty  upon 


OF  MARRIAGE.  29 

the  laws  of  electricity  than  upon  those  of  love,  for 
we  have  the  assistance  of  consciousness  in  one  case 
which  we  want  in  the  other.  But  note  the  analogy  : 
it  has  been  demonstrated  that  all  bodies  possess 
electricity  in  a  greater  or  less  degree ;  and  that 
some  are  positive  when  compared  with  others,  and 
some  are  negative.  They  are  usually  at  rest ;  but 
when  two  bodies  of  different  electrical  states  ap- 
proach each  other,  they  at  once  become  highly 
excited,  and  continue  so  till  brought  in  contact 
with  each  other,  when  the  positive  charges  or  im- 
pregnates the  negative.  So  it  is  found  that  love 
exists  in  different  states  in  the  two  sexes,  and  in 
different  degrees  of  intensity  in  different  individuals 
of  the  same  sex.  Males  are  positive,  and  females 
negative ;  and  while  the  latter  differ  less  from 
each  other  than  the  former  do,  being  nearly  all  of 
them  susceptible  to  the  proper  proposals  of  genuine 
love,  yet  they  are  not  so  much  affected  by  sponta- 
neous passion  as  the  former  are,  who  usually  ex- 
perience it  with  great  intensity,  and  are  impelled 
to  make  the  first  advances.  But  there  are  always 
some  individuals  among  them  who  need  a  great 
deal  of  encouragement  before  they  will  advance 


30  HISTORY  AND  PBILOSOPHY 

and  propose  ;  and  others  who  are  almost  destitute 
of  the  common  sensibility  of  love,  and  who  will 
neither  make  proposals  nor  receive  them. 

LOVE   REFINES   AND   ENNOBLES. 

Love  sheds  on  earth  something  of  the  beauty 
and  the  light  of  heaven.  Love  develops  the  no- 
blest traits  of  humanity ;  and  often  brings  them 
out  from  those  persons  who  had  given  little  promise 
of  possessing  them,  until  they  were  brought  under 
the  influence  of  this  master  passion.  There  is 
nothing  so  great,  so  difficult,  or  so  self-sacrificing 
that  love  will  not  inspire  men  to  dare  and  to  do.  But 
it  is  not  more  in  splendid  achievements  or  wonder- 
ful adventures,  than  it  is  in  the  innumerable  little 
things,  which  conspire  to  make  up  the  happiness 
of  social  life,  that  the  greatest  victories  of  love  are 
won.  We  cannot  love  any  person,  without  seeking 
his  or  her  benefit ;  and  in  endeavoring  to  benefit  and 
please  the  object  of  our  affection,  we  are  impelled  to 
improve  and  beautify  ourselves,  in  order  to  become 
more  worthy  of  our  beloved  one's  affection  in  return. 
And  this  leads  us  not  only  to  adorn  our  persons 
but  to  polish  our  manners  and  cultivate  our  minds. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  31 

Hence,  we  are  deeply  indebted  to  this  sentiment 
for  those  qualities  of  mind  and  person  which  com- 
bine to  constitute  us  social  beings  ;  since  it  does 
not  more  certainly  impel  us  to  the  acquisition  of 
what  is  beautiful  and  becoming  in  dress  and  de- 
portment, than  to  the  attainment  of  intelligence 
and  politeness,  and  to  surround  ourselves  with  all 
the  embellishments  of  civilization.  Love  refines 
all  that  it  touches.  Under  its  influence  the  rough 
boy  becomes  the  respectful  young  gentleman,  and 
the  awkward  girl  assumes  the  innate  refinement  of 
the  lady.  Love  paints  the  cheek  with  roses,  adds 
new  lustre  and  intelligence  to  the  eye,  imparts 
strength  and  elasticity  to  the  step,  grace  and 
dignity  to  the  mien,  courage  to  the  heart,  elo- 
quence to  the  tongue,  and  poetry  to  every  thought. 
In  fact,  love  is  at  once  the  poetry  of  life,  and  the 
life  of  poetry.  Love  has  inspired,  in  every  age, 
the  brightest  dreams  of  fancy  and  the  noblest  con- 
ceptions of  literature  and  of  art,  constituting  the 
perpetual  theme  which  animates  the  writer's  pen 
and  tunes  the  poet's  lyre.  Love  reposes  in  the 
sculptor's  marble  ;  love  blushes  upon  the  painter's 
canvas.     And  all  these  various   embodiments  of 


/ 

32  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

love  by  literature  and  art  are  universally  appre- 
ciated and  admired ;  for  the  pen,  the  chisel,  and 
the  pencil  have  only  given  expression  to  the  gen- 
eral sentiment  of  mankind.  The  poet  and  the 
artist  have  only  wrought  out  what  every  one  else 
had  already  thought :  and  have  only  given  speech, 
form,  and  color  to  the  silent,  shadowy  images  of 
the  common  heart  of  man. 

LOVE   INHERENT   TO   ALL. 

That  the  language  of  love  is  universally  under- 
stood, and  that  its  varied  delineations  by  the  in- 
spiration of  art  are  always  and  everywhere  delight- 
fully recognized,  is  sufficient  proof  that  the  sentiment 
is  universally  experienced.  It  is  not  confined  to 
the  gifted,  the  highborn,  or  the  rich,  nor  is  it  pecu- 
liar to  any  period  of  the  world,  or  to  any  condition 
of  life.  All  have  possessed  the  sensibility,  if  they 
have  not  experienced  the  passion ;  they  have  felt 
the  want  of  love,  if  they  have  not  enjoyed  its  frui;:^ 
tion. 

It  is  our  birthright.  We  have  no  sooner  passed 
the  period  of  adolescence  than  we  inherit  the  pow- 
er and  the  inclination  to  love.     We  then  feel  an 


OF  MARRIAGE.  33 

instinctive  yearning  of  the  heart  for  a  kindred 
heart.  We  are  each  of  us  conscious  of  being  in- 
complete alone,  and  incapable  of  enjoying  alone 
our  fullest  happiness,  and  we  intuitively  seek  that 
happiness  by  linking  our  destiny  in  life  with  some 
dear  one  of  the  opposite  sex.  It  is  there  only  that 
our  natural  wants  can  be  supplied.  One  sex  is  the 
complement  of  the  other.  Each  is  imperfect  alone, 
and  each  supplies  what  the  other  lacks.  Self- 
reliant  as  man  may  suppose  himself  to  be,  yet  divine 
wisdom  has  said,  "  It  is  not  good  for  the  man  to  be 
alone  ; "  he  needs  a  "  helpmeet "  in  woman.  Still 
less  is  it  good  for  the  woman  to  be  alone,  for  "  she 
was  created  for  the  man,"  and  every  woman  wants 
a  man  to  love ;  for  love  is  her  life,  and  it  is  only 
while  she  loves,  or  hopes  to  love,  that  she  lives  to 
any  happy  or  useful  or  honest  purpose.  It  has  been 
said  that  as  woman  was  taken  out  of  man  in  her 
creation,  so  it  is  man's  instinctive  desire  to  seek  her 
and  to  reclaim  her  as  his  own  counterpart,  or  that 
portion  of  himself  which  is  required  to  complete 
the  symmetry  of  his  nature  and  the.  happiness  of 
his  life.  For  this  love  the  youthful  heart  longs  and 
pines  until  it  attains  the  object  of  its  desires,  or 
3 


34  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

until  it  has  become  so  sordid,  so  hard,  and  so  profli- 
gate, as  to  be,  at  once,  unworthy  of  possessing  it, 
and  incapable  of  enjoying  it.  This  susceptibility 
of  the  youthful  heart  has  been  faithfully  portrayed 
by  a  youthful  poet,  in  the  following  lines,  which 
are  at  once  recognized,  as  expressing  the  common 
sentiment  of  humanity :  — 

"  It  is  not  that  my  lot  is  low. 
That  bids  the  silent  tear  to  flow. 
It  is  not  grief  that  bids  me  moan, 
It.  is  that  I  am  all  alone. 

In  woods  and  glens  I  love  to  roam, 
When  the  tired  hedger  hies  him  home  ; 
Or  by  the  woodland  pool  to  rest, 
When  pale  the  star  looks  on  its  breast. 

Yet  when  the  silent  evening  sighs, 
With  hallowed  airs  and  symphonies. 
My  spirit  takes  another  tone. 
And  sighs  that  it  is  all  alone. 

The  woods  and  winds  with  sudden  wail 
Tell  all  the  same  unvaried  tale  ; 
I've  none  to  smile  when  I  am  free. 
And  when  I  sigh,  to  sigh  with  me. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  35 

Yet  in  my  dreams  a  form  I  view, 

That  thinks  on  me  and  loves  me  too ; 

I  start !  and  when  the  vision's  flown, 

I  weep  that  I  am  all  alone." 

H.  K.  White. 

Another  poet  has  expressed  the  same  sentiment 
in  the  following  impassioned  lines  ;  — 

"  Give  me  but 
Something  whereunto  I  may  bind  my  heart ; 
Something  to  love,  to  cherish,  and.  to  clasp 
Affection's  tendrils  round." 

Now,  if  any  one  should  be  inclined  to  call  all  this 
but  love-sick  sentimentality,  unworthy  our  serious 
consideration,  I  shall  only  answer  him  in  the  words       J 
/of  Dr.  Johnson,  the  English  moralist :  ''  We  must      [ 
not  ridicule  the  passion  of  love,  which  he  who  never      / 
felt,  never  was  happy  ;  and  he  who  laughs  at  never     / 
deserves  to  feel,  —  a  passion  which   has    inspired  / 
heroism,  and  subdued    avarice ;    a  passion  which  \ 
has  caused  the  change  of  empix'es,  and  the  loss  of  7 
worlds." 

Shall  these  heaven-born  impulses  of  nature  be 
regarded,  or  must  they  be   repressed?  "  Shall  we 


36  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

permit  these  tendrils  of  our  love  to  bind  themselves 
around  some  kindred  heart,  or  shall  we  suffer  them 
to  be  rudely  torn  asunder,  and  cast  aside  to  wither 
and  decay?  Implanted  for  the  noblest  purposes 
within  our  breasts,  interwoven  with  the  very  fibres 
of  our  being,  the  laws  of  God  and  of  nature  un- 
questionably demand  their  indulgence. 

LOVE   IS   THE   RIGHT   OF   ALL. 

/  In  plainer  terms,  the  laws  of  God  and  of  nature 
clearly  indicate  that  every  man  and  every  woman, 
possessing  sufficient  health  and  vitality  to  experience 
the  passion  of  love,  is  benefited  by  its  proper  grati- 
fication ;  and  those  laws  both  allow  and  invite  every 
\  one  to  enjoy  it  in  its  full  fruition.  A  man  is  not 
wholly  a  man,  nor  a  woman  wholly  a  woman,  who 
has  never  experienced  the  ecstasies  of  gratified  love. 
And  those  men  and  women  who  are  spending  their 
most  vigorous  period  of  life  in  cold  and  barren 
celibacy,  without  ever  having  yielded  to  the  warm 
..desires  of  reproduction,  are  living,  every  moment, 
in  debt  to  their  Creator  and  to  the  commonwealth 
of  mankind.  They  have  never  fulfilled  some  of 
the  most  important  purposes  of  their  being. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  37 

"  Torches  are  made  to  light,  jewels  to  wear, 
Dainties  to  taste,  fresh  beauty  for  the  use, 
Herbs  for  their  smell,  and  sappy  plants  to  bear; 
Things  growing  to  themselves  are  growth's  abuse  : 

Seeds  spring  from  seeds,  and  beauty  breedeth  beauty, 

Thou  wast  begot —  to  get  it  is  thy  duty. 

Upon  the  earth's  increase  why  shouldst  thou  feed, 
Unless  the  earth  with  thy  increase  be  fed  ? 
By  law  of  Nature  thou  art  bound  to  breed, 
That  thine  may  live,  when  thou  thyself  art  dead  ; 

And  so  in  spite  of  death  thou  dost  survive, 

In  that  thy  likeness  still  is  left  alive." 

Shakspeare  (Venus  and  Adonis). 

LOVE  MUST  BE    RESTRICTED   WITHIN   THE    LIMITS    OF 
CHASTITY. 

Tet  men  and  women  must  not  rush  into  sensual 
pleasure  like  brutes,  for  we  are  moral  beings,  as 
well  as  corporeal  beings,  and,  as  such,  the  subjects 
of  moral  law,  which  requires  us  to  govern  our 
passions,  and  circumscribe  them  within  the  limits 
of  purity.  But,  even  in  this  respect,  there  is  no 
real  disagreement  between  the  laws  of  morality 
and  those  of  Nature :  when  they  are  properly  un- 
derstood, they  are  each  equally  explicit  in  forbid- 
ding every  form'  of  licentious  impurity.     The  most 


38  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

loathsome  and  incurable  diseases  are  the  penalties 
imposed  by  natural  law,  and  the  severest  retribu- 
tions of  eternity,  the  penalties  imposed  by  divine 
law,  upon  the  promiscuous  and  unrestrained  in- 
dulgence of  the  amorous  propensity.    Nor  are  these 
1^  penalties  unnecessary.     No  passion  of  our  nature 
'^  is  more  vehement,  and  no  one  more  liable  to  be 
^   ^  tempted  and  led  astray  from  the  path  of  rectitude  ; 
4  ^  and  we  should,  therefore,  attend  the  more  carefully 
A«/    to  those   laws    and    limitations    which   God    and 
^     <  Nature  have  imposed  upon  its  indulgence.     And  I 
K-^^  >  cannot  doubt  that  they  have  limited  its  indulgence 
^Jt^   strictly   to    the    marriage    relation.     Some   well- 
defined  limit  there  must  be  between  chastity  and 
unchastity,  and  vice  and  virtue,  or  else  the  laws 
which  define  them  and  which  punish  transgressors 
must  be  unjust  and  oppressive. 

MAREIAGE    CONSTITUTES    THAT   LIMIT. 

Here  there  is  no  oppression  and  no  injustice. 
Everybody  is  born  with  a  propensity  to  love,  and 
everybody  that  is  willing  to  marry  may  marry,  and 
indulge  that  propensity  in  innocence  and  purity. 
Within  this  limit  the  o^ratification  of  love  aflbrds 


OF  MARRIAGE.  39 

us  the  most  exquisite  pleasure,  promotes  health, 
conduces  to  longevity,  and  is  entirely  consistent 
with  the  rules  of  morality  and  religion.  But  when 
it  oversteps  this  limit  prescribed  by  our  Creator, 
and  bursts  the  barriers  of  chastity,  it  then  assumes 
the  form  of  unprincipled  lust,  and  inflicts  upon  its 
miserable  votaries  the  utmost  torture  of  body, 
degradation  of  mind,  and  remorse  of  conscience. 
/    "Marriage  is  honorable  in  all,  and  the  bed  un- 

>^     defiled  ;  but  whoremongers  and  adulterers  God  will 

\     judge."  —  Heb.  xiii.  4. 

"  Hail  wedded  love,  mysterious  law,  true  source 
Of  human  offspring,  sole  propriety, 
In  Paradise,  of  all  things  common  else. 
By  thee  adulterous  lust  was  driven  from  man, 
Among  the  bestial  herd  to  range ;  by  thee 
rounded  in  reason,  loyal,  just,  and  pure 
Relations  dear  and  all  the  charities 
Of  father,  son,  and  brother  first  were  known. 
Far  be  it,  that  I  should  write  thee  sin  or  blame ; 
Or  think  thee  unbefitting  holiest  place ; 
Perpetual  fountain  of  domestic  sweets, 
"Whose  bed  is  undefiled  and  chaste  pronounced. 
Present  or  past,  as  saints  and  patriarchs  used. 
Here  Love  his  golden  shafts  employs,  here  lights 
His  constant  lamp,  and  waves  his  purple  wings." 

Paradise  Lost,  Book  iv. 


40  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  III. 

PRIMARY  LAWS  OF  MARRIAGE. 

Since  the  infallible  and  unchangeable  laws  of 
God  and  of  Nature  have  limited  the  indulgence  of 
love  to  married  persons  only,  it  becomes  necessary 
to  inquire  into  the  laws  and  limitations  of  mar- 
riage itself.  What  is  marriage  ?  and  who  are  en- 
titled to  its  rights  and  benefits  ? 

MARRIAGE   DEFINED. 

The  proper  definition  of  marriage  is  the  main 
point  at  issue  between  the  social  system  of  polyga- 
my and  that  of  monogamy,  which  it  is  the  object 
of  this  treatise  to  examine  and  compare.  One 
system  defines  marriage  to  be  the  exclusive  union 
of  one  man  to  one  woman  until  separated  by  death 
or  divorce  ;  the  other  defines  it  to  be  the  union  of 
one  man  to  either  one  woman  or  more,  until  sepa- 
rated, in  like  manner,  by  death  or  divorce. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  41 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  determine  which  of 
these  definitions  is  most  in  harmony  with  the  laws 
of  God  and  of  Nature.  And  we  shall  be  better 
able  to  do  this,  by  considering  carefully  the  benefi- 
cent purposes  which  marriage  is  designed  to  sub- 
serve. 

MARRIAGE   BENEFICIAI.. 

Marriage  is  the  first  and  best  of  all  human  insti- 
tutions, if  it  can  properly  be  called  human,  since  it 
was  first  solemnized  in  Paradise,  by  the  Creator 
himself,  who  then  said,  "  It  is  not  good  that  the 
man  should  be  alone  ;  I  will  make  him  a  help  meet 
for  him."  And  he  made  a  woman,  and  brought  her 
unto  the  man.  "  And  God  blessed  them,  and 
God  said  unto  them.  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and 
replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it." 

It  is  impossible  to  enumerate  all  the  benefits  of 
marriage,  since  there  is  no  vital  interest  of  man- 
kind which  it  does  not  affect  favorably.  Marriage 
perpetuates  the  human  race ;  lays  the  foundations 
of  organized  society ;  promotes  industry ;  accu- 
mulates wealth ;  cultivates  the  arts,  and  maintains 
religion.      It    builds    the    house,    tills    the    soil, 


<i,    ^  /42  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


i 


mpports  the  family,  and  fosters   every  charitable 
and  benevolent  enterprise.     / 


ALL   ARE    ENTITLED    TO   ITS    BENEFITS. 

As  the  word  of  God  has  declared  marriage  to 
be  honorable  in  all,  so  we  must  infer  that  his 
laws  have  made  provision  for  the  honorable  mar- 
riage of  all;  and  that  every  person  of  each  sex 
is  equally  entitled  to  its  rights  and  benefits. 
These  rights  should  no  more  be  restricted  to  the 
J  rich  and  the  fortunate  than  are  the  susceptibilities 
J  of  love,  upon  which  marriage  properly  depends, 
and  from  which  it  derives  its  only  proper  warrant 
and  authority. 

"  Love,  and  love  only,  is  the  loan  for  love." 

Marriage,  when  authorized  and  warranted  by 
the  promptings  of  an  honest  love,  is  a  pure  and 
blissful  consummation  of  all  that  is  divine  in 
humanity ;  but  when  it  is  contracted  from  mer- 
cenary or  ambitious  motives,  it  becomes  a  most 
unholy  profanation.  Love  was  not  made  for 
marriage,  but  marriage  for  love.  Love  is  an 
inherent  and  a  necessary  attribute  of  humanity ; 


OF  MARRIAGE.  43 

marriage  a  subsequent  relationship  instituted  to 
minister  to  love's  wants.  Love  is  the  mistress,  Na. 
marriage  the  handmaid.  Marriage  must  wait  ^  r 
the  demands  of  love,  and  not  love  the  demands  o^  K  ^ 
marriage.  It  is,  therefore,  equally  disrespectful 
to  our  Creator,  and  dishonorable  to  man,  to  require 
that  love  should  be  suppressed  because  marriages 
is  inconvenient,  and  still  more  dishonorable  and 
disrespectful  to  require  any  one  to  be  deprived  of 
the  rights  of  love  on  account  of  the  impossibility 
of  marriage  ;  for  marriage  ought  to  be  possible  to 
all.  If  love  be  refining  and  ennobling,  if  it  be 
the  spontaneous,  instinctive  birthright  of  all,  and 
if  our  Creator  has  restricted  its  indulgence  to  the 
marriage  relation,  then  marriage  must  be  the 
right  of  all,  or  else  God  is  not  a  benevolent  being. 
^But  all  nature  and  all  revelation  have  demon- 
strated that  he  is  a  benevolent  being,  and  it  is 
both  impious  and  absurd  to  believe  that  his  laws 
have  made  no  adequate  provision  for  every  one  to 
j  be  married  who  wishes  to  be.  We  may  waive 
,.  our  rights,  and  live  in  celibacy,  if  we  prefer 
to ;  but  no  one  who  loves  and  who  wishes  to 
marry  ought  to  be  compelled  to  remain  unmarried. 


y 


44  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

It .  is,  therefore,  demonstrated  that  any  form  of 
society  which  fails  to  provide  for  the  marriage  of 
all  is  a  defective  system,  and  opposed  to  the  nat- 
ural, inherent,  and  inalienable  rights  of  man. 

THESE    RIGHTS   ARE   DENIED    TO   MANY. 

Yet  we  well  know  that  there  are  very  many 
persons,  especially  many  women,  who  are  neither 
married  nor  have  an  opportunity  to  marry.  By 
some  means  they  have  been  deprived  of  their 
rights.  The  fault  is  not  theirs;  they  would,  in 
almost   every   instance,  prefer   wedded   life   if   it 


'^^     r*   were  in  their  power  to  attain  it ;  but   it   is    not. 

^'    ^   They   possess   the   same   susceptibilities   of   love, 

x-j   the  same  yearning  for  intimate  companionship,  that 

*"'  others  do,  but  these  tender  sensibilities   they  are 

p   obliged  to  repress.     The  fault  is  not  in   nature, 

«^  nor  in  the  laws  of  God,  but  it  is  in  the  tyrannical 

^    laws  and  fashions  of  the  artificial  system  of  social 

life  which  now  obtains  among  us.     This   system 

must   be  at  fault,  for  it  does  not  and  it   cannot 

provide  for  the  marriage  of  all ;.  and  many  who 

desire  to  marry  are  forever  deprived  of  husbands 

and     homes :     while     the     system    of    polygamy 


OF  MARRIAGE.  45 

does  provide  for  all,  and  is,  therefore,  the  only 
system  which  is  in  harmony  with  divine  and 
natural  laws. 

This  proposition  is  further  demonstrated  by  the 
simple  fact  that  the  number  of  marriageable  women 
always  exceeds  the  number  of  marriageable  men. 

MORE  WOMEN   THAN   MEN. 

The  statistics  of  all  States  and  nations  agree  in 
this  fact,*  except,  occasionally,  in  those  States  in 

*  "  The  censuses  heretofore  taken  of  more  than  one  hundred 
millions  of  the  population  of  Europe  exhibit  the  remarkable  fact, 
that  in  those  countries,  during  the  first  fifteen  years  of  life,  the_  '  J 
males  uniformly  exceed  the  females  in  number,  but  that,  sub-  ^V* 
sequently  to  this  age,  the  females  become  most  numerous,  and 
increasingly  so  with  increase  of  age.  The  same  is  true  with 
regard  to  the  proportionate  numbers  of  the  sexes  in  Massa- 
chusetts and  the  other  New-England  States. 

"  During  the  ten  years  1856-65,  the  total  number  of  births 
registered  in  Massachusetts  was  334,493,  of  which  171,584,  or 
51.29  per  cent,  were  males;  161,715,  or  48.35  per  cent,  were 
females;  and  of  1,194,  or  ^  of  one  per  cent,  the  sex  was  not 
stated.  During  the  first  ten  years  of  life,  the  deaths  of  males 
exceeded  those  of  females  in  a  ratio  beyond  that  of  the  relative 
number  of  the  sexes  at  birth, 

"  In  1855,  there  were  32,301  more  females  than  males  in  Mas- 
sachusetts: in  1860,  37,640  more  females;  and  the  excess  of 


46  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

which  the  population  is  very  largely  made  up  by 
foreign  immigration.  Most  of  these  immigrants 
are  men  ;  and  many  of  them  have  left  their  wives 
and  families  in  the  mother-country,  and  do  not 
intend  to  become  permanent  citizens,  but  hope 
to  make  their  fortunes  and  return  home  to  enjoy 
them.  Yet  many  persons  who  have  never  ex- 
amined statistical  tables,  nor  taken  any  other  ac- 
curate means  of  informing  themselves,  suppose  the 
number  of  the  men  to  be  equal  to  that  of  the 
women ;  and  it  has  been  a  plausible  objection  to 
polygamy,  that  if  some  men  have  a  plurality  of 
wives,  some  other  men  must  thereby  be  deprived 
of  any,  and  the  system  must  be  unequal  and  unjust. 
The  objection  would  be  valid  were  it  based  upon 
valid  facts :  but  it  is  all  an  error ;  and  it  is  one 
which  a  little  observation  would  enable  almost  any 
one  readily  to  correct.  One  has  only  to  count  up 
the  persons  of  each  sex  of  marriageable  age  in  all 

females  in  1865  was  63,011."  —  Census  of  Massachusetts  for  1865, 
pp.  286,  287. 

"  Ever  since  the  first  census  of  1765,  there  has  been  found  an 
excess  of  females  over  males  in  Massachusetts;  the  disparity- 
has  increased  somewhat  rapidly  since  1850,"  —  Massachusetts 
Registration  Report  of  Births^  Marriages,  and  Deaths  for  1866. 
0.  Warner,  Secretary  of  Commonwealth,  Boston,  1867. 


OF  M An  R I  AGE. 


47 


the  families  of  his  own  acquaintance  to  satisfy  him- 
self that  the  females  will  outnumber  the  males.  It 
is  true,  that,  at  birth,  the  number  of  each  sex  is 
nearly  equal ;  that  of  the  males  being  slightly  in 
excess,  but  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  males 
die  in  childhood,  than  of  the  females.*  Generally, 
about  fifty  per  cent  of  all  male  children  die  before 
the  age  of  twenty-one  years ;  while  only  about 
thirty-three  per  cent,  or  two-thirds  as  many  females, 
die  during  the  same  period. f     And  then,  as  they 


*  In  Massachusetts  the  percentage  of  the  deaths  of  male 
children  under  one  year  of  age  during  the  year  1866  was  22.25, 
that  of  female  children  during  the  same  year  was  17.42.  See 
Massachusetts  Registration  Report  for  1866,  p.  44. 


t  STATISTICAL  TABLES. 


Pop.  of  Massachusetts, 
June  1,  A.D.  1860. 

Female. 
15,6(i6 
59,695 
64,050 
56,804 
63,730 
132,106 


Male. 

Under  1  year. 

15,869 

1  and  under  5, 

60,059 

5         "        10, 

64,476 

10         '*        15, 

57,544 

15         "         20, 

57,070 

20         "         30, 

112,413 

Total, 


596,713      634,353 


White  Pop.  of  Suffolk  Co. 
(City  of  Boston),  Mass.,  1860. 


Under  1  year, 
1  and  under  5, 
6         "         10, 
10         «         15, 
15         «*         20, 

Total, 


Male. 
2,707 
9,358 
9,730 
8,224 

19,865 


Female. 
2,743 
9,334 
9,945 
8,313 
23,906 


91,015        99,234 


Colored  Pop.  N.Y.  City,  I860- 


Male. 

Female- 

Under  1  year. 

82 

114 

1  and  under  5, 

410 

453 

5         "        10, 

566 

674 

10         "         15, 

665 

531 

15         "         20, 

446 

648 

20         "        30, 

1,120 

1,655 

Total, 


5,468 


7,106 


Pop.  of  Pennsylvania,  I860 
Male.      Female 
Under  1  year,       44,  I67 

1  and  under  5,  179,253 

5  "         10,  194,258 

10  "         15,  171.162 

15  "         20,  149,531 

20  "         30,  246,343 


Total, 


42,704 
176,116 
191,094 
167,025 
160,357 
263,931 


1,454,419    1,451,790 


48 


HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


grow  up  to  manhood,  the  boys  and  young  men  are 
constantly  exposed  to  hardships  and  dangers,  from 
which  the  softer  sex  is  exempt ;  and  hence  the 
excess  of  the  females  goes  on  continually  increas- 
ing, as  we  see  by  the  statistical  tables,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  marriageable  age.  All 
this  in  times  of  peace :  the  excess  must  be  much 
greater  than  usual  after  a  destructive  war ;  for 
during  the  late  civil  war  in  America  there  were  lost 
from  both  parties  nearly  a  million  of  men  in  the 
most  productive  period  of  life. 


Top.  of  N.  York  State,  1860. 

Pop.  of  Phil.  Co.,  Penn., 

Male.      Female. 

(White),  1860. 

Under  1  year,       52,175       51,257 

Male. 

Female. 

1  and  under  5,  216,112     210,591 

Under  1  year,         7,829 

7,475 

5          '•         10,  232,426      227,413 

1  and  under  5,    30,864 

30,533 

10         "         15,  203,453      197,884 

5         "         10,    31,981 

31,7.37 

15          '«         20,  188,893      205,604 

10          "         15,    26,135 

27,113 

20          '«         30,  341,037      386,141 

15          "         20,    23,425 

29,294 

20          "         30,    49,667 

61,380 

Total,              1,933,532  1,947,203 

Total,              260,156 

283,188 

Pop.  of  Philadelphia. 

WHITE  Pop.  of  N.Y.City,  i860. 

(Colored),  1860. 

Male.      Female. 

Male. 

Female. 

Under  1  year,       12,247       12,072 

Under  1  year,           187 

209 

1  and  under  5,    47,074       46,025 

1  and  under  5,         809 

1,065 

5          "          10,    46,380        45,452 

5         "         10,      1,019 

1,195 

10          '<          15,    36,233        34,936 

10         "         15,         996 

1,199 

15          «'         20,    33,344        39,628 

15          "         20,         915 

1,452 

20          "         30,    77,747        97,627 

20         '«         30,      1,875 

2,864 

Total,  391,521      409,567       Total,  9,177       13,008 

The  foregoing  statistics  are  compiled  from  the  United-States 

Census  for  1860.    The  following  are  from  the  Census  of  Massa- 


OF  MAJRRIAGE. 


49 


WOMEN   MATURE   EARLIER  THAN   MEN. 

Young  women  become  marriageable  at  a  much 
earlier  age  than  young  men  do.  There  is  a  natural 
or  constitutional  difference  of  several  years,  and 
prudential  considerations  cause  the  difference  to 
become  practically  greater.  But  few  young  men 
are  born  to  large  fortunes,  which  these  times  of 
extravagance  require  for  the  fashionable  mainte- 
nance of  a  family  ;  and  those  who  are  rich  are  not 
always  the  most  prompt  to  marry.  They  prefer 
to  spend  their  early  manhood  in  dissipation,  and 
are  unwilling  to  bow  to  the  yoke  of  wedlock  till 


chusetts  for  1865,  published  under  the  supervision  of  0.  Warner, 
Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth.    Table  I.  p.  2. 


Pop. 

OF  MASSACHUSETTS, 

Pop. 

OF  Suffolk  Co. 

MASS. 

Junel 

,  1865. 

(City 

of 

Boston),    June  1, 1865. 

Male. 

Female. 

Under  1 

year,         2,145 

2,017 

Under  1  year, 

11,974 

11,745 

1  and  under  2,     2,003 

1,819 

1  and  under  2, 

12,898 

12,431 

2 

3,      2,288 

2,255 

2          ' 

3, 

13,643 

13,515 

3 

4,      2,205 

2,233 

3          ' 

'          4, 

14,161 

14,188 

4 

6,      2,280 

2,301 

4          ' 

5, 

14,735 

14,653 

5 

10,    11,267 

11,623 

5          ♦ 

'         10, 

71,777 

71,614 

10 

15,      9,848 

9,971 

10          ' 

'         15, 

63,853 

62,838 

15 

20,      8.527 

10,267 

15          * 
20          « 

'         20, 
*         30, 

55,281 
96,027 

61,890 
129,479 

20 

30,     17,601 

25,618 

Total, 

96,529 

111,683 

Total 

» 

602,010 

665,021 

In  the  above  table  the  excess  of  females  between  the  ages  of 
15  and  20  is  6,609,  or  about  J  of  the  number  of  males;  between 
20  and  30  it  is  33,452,  or  more  than  ^  of  the  number  of  males. 


HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

they  begin  to  feel  the  infirmities  of  age  ;  while  the 
poor  man  must  devote  several  years  of  his  majority 
to  toil  before  he  becomes  able  to  assume  matrimo- 
nial expenses.  The  result  is  that  most  men  do 
not  marry  imtil  between  twenty-five  and  thirty-five 
years  of  age,  and  many  at  a  later  period ;  while  a 
large  majority  of  women  who  marry  at  all  are 
married  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and  twenty- 
five.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  women  are  practi- 
""■^^1^  cally  marriageable  ten  years  younger  than  men  are, 
]^  a  period  which  constitutes  a  third  part  of  the  ave- 
rao;e  duration  of  adult  life.    From  these  two  causes 


Y 


^ 


.^  >    alone,  —  the  greater  number  of  women,  and  their 
being  marriageable  so  much  younger,  —  the  pro- 
^  portion  of  marriageable  women  to   marriageable 
men  would  be  about  two  to  one. 

MANY   MEN   REFUSE    TO    MAEEY. 

;^ jr  But  the  practical  difference  is  still  greater.  For 
after  men  have  arrived  at  adult  manhood,  and 
have  acquired  the  means  of  supporting  a  family, 

r;^'  w^any  of  them  refuse  marriage.     Some  have  out-    7 
lived   their  youthful   desires,   and   have   acquired 


^     ^;    decided  habits  of  celibacy  ;  some  are  too  gay  and 


OF  MARRIAGE.  51 

r  too  profligate ;  others  too  busy  and  too  selfish  \j 
others  so  broken  down  by  early  dissipation  and 
diseased  by  the  contagious  poison  of  low  vice,  that 
they  are  totally  unfit  to  marry :  while  tliere  are 
many  others  whose  occupations  (such  as  sailors 
and  soldiers)  most  commonly  prevent  marriage. 
From  these  disabilities  the  other  sex  is  much  more 
exempt.  They  are  exposed  to  fewer  temptations  ; 
they  are  more  susceptible  to  religious  impressions  ; 
they  are  more  immediately  under  the  control    of 

parents  and  guardians,  and  are  saved  from  many 

« 

of  those  enervating  and  degrading  habits  which 
beset  young  men,  rendering  them  either  disinclined 
to  marriage,  or  unfit  for  it,  or  both. 

FEW  WOMEN   DECLINE   MARKIAGE. 

There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  few  women  who 
are  unwilling  to  marry.  They  are  naturally  depend- 
ent upon  their  male  friends  ;  and,  after  the  period 
of  childhood,  this  dependence  is  seldom  happy  or 
even  tolerable,  except  in  the  marriage  relation. 
The  former  is  a  dependence  of  necessity,  the  latter 
is,  or  ought  to  be,  a  dependence  of  love  ;  and  this 
distinction  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world. 


52  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


Hence  it  needs  no  argument  to  prove  what  is  so 
universally  admitted,  that  women  fulfil  their  high- 
est  destiny  in   life   only  by  becoming  wives    and  N 
mothers.     I  will   cite   a  woman's   testimony,  and/ 
submit   the   case,   quoting   the    earnest  words    of 
"Gail  Hamilton."      ''There  is  not  one  woman \ 
in  a  million  who  would  not  be  married  if  .  .  .  she    \ 
could  have  a  chance.     How  do  I  know?     Just  as 
I  know  that  the  stars  are  now  shining  in  the  sky, 
though  it  is   high   noon.     I  never  saw  a  star  at 
noonday ;  but  I  know  it  is  the  nature  of  stars  to 
shine  in  the  sky,  and  of  the  sky  to  hold  its  stars. 
Genius  or  fool,  rich  or  poor,  beauty  or  the  beast, 
if  marriage  were  what   it   should   be,  what  God 
meant  it  to  be,  what  even,  with  the  world's  present 
possibilities,  it  might  be,  it  would  be  the  Elysium, 
the  sole,  complete  Elysium,  of  woman,  yes,  and  of 

y>man.  Greatness,  glory,  usefulness,  happiness, 
await  her  otherwheres ;    but   here   alone    all   her 

\  powers,  all  her  being,  can  find  full  play.  No  con- 
dition, no  character  even,  can  quite  hide  the  gleam 
of  the  sacred  fire  ;  but  on  the  household  hearth  it 
joins  the  warmth  of  earth  to  the  hues  of  heaven. 
Brilliant,  dazzling,  vivid,  a  beacon  and  a  blessing 


OF  MARRIAGE.  53 

her  light  may  be ;  but  only  a  happy  home  blends 
the  prismatic  rays  into  a  soft,  serene  whiteness,  that 
floods  the  world  with  divine  illumination.  Without 
wifely  and  motherly  love,  a  part  of  her  nature  L 
must  remain  enclosed,  a  spring  shut  up,  a  fountain 
sealed.'*  *  "^ 

MONOGAMY  PREVENTS  MAURI  AGE. 

But  under  the  system  of  monogamy  it  is  impos- 
sible for  half  the  women  to  live  in  the  enjoyment 
of  the  married  state.  This  cruel  and  oppressive 
system  is  compelling  them  either  to  repress  the  fond- 
est sensibilities  and  the  most  imperative  demands 
of  Nature,  and  to  renounce  their  dearest  rights, 
or  else  to  assert  them  in  a  clandestine  and  forbidden 
manner,  and  thus  to  abandon  themselves  to  a  life 
of  infamy  and  an  eternity  of  shame  and  woe. 

In  older  and  more  wealthy  countries  practising 
monogamy,  the  comparative  number  of  unmarried 
to  married  women  is  even  greater.  The  statistical  v 
tables  of  England  show  that  less  than  one-third  of 
the  marriageable  women  of  that  country  were  liv- 
ing in  marriage  at  the  time  of  the  last  census. 

*  New  Atmosphere,  p.  55. 


54  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

At  the  period  of  the  highest  glory  of  the  Roman 
empire,  and  also  during  its  long  decline,  while 
wealth  and  luxury  increased,  and  the  artificial  con- 
ventionalities of  society  were  greatly  multiplied,  it 
was  observed,  with  alarm,  that  marriages  became 
less  and  less  frequent,  and  were  consummated  later 
and  later  in  life  :  and  all  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment was  exerted  in  vain  to  arrest  the  growing  evil. 
Heavy  fines  and  special  taxes  were  levied  upon  old 
achelors,  and  high  premiums  paid  to  persons  hav- 
ing numerous  families  ;  but  the  evil  continued  to  j 
increase  till  the  empire  was  dismembered.*  / 

*  *'  But  neither  rewards  nor  penalties  proved  effectual  to 
checli  the  increasing  tendency  to  celibacy ;  and  at  the  period  of 
the  Gracchi  an  alarm  was  sounded  that  the  old  Roman  race  was 
becoming  rapidly  extinguished.  .  .  .  When  the  legislation  of 
Julius  Caesar  was  found  ineffectual  for  controlling  the  still 
growing  evil,  it  was  re-enforced  by  his  successor  with  fresh  pen- 
alties and  rewards."  — MerivaWs  Hist,  of  the  Romans,  chap.  33, 
vol.  2,  pp.  37,  38. 

"  But  upon  this  one  point  the  master  of  the  Romans  [Augus- 
tus] could  make  no  impression  upon  the  dogged  disobedience 
of  his  subjects:  both  the  men  and  the  women  preferred  the 
loose  terms  of  union  upon  which  they  had  consented  to  cohabit, 
&c:'  —  Ibid. 

"Augustus  most  anxiously,  both  by  law  and  precept,  en- 


* 

i 


OF  MARRIAGE.  65 

THE   MAREIAGE    CEREMONY. 

In  respect  to  the  mode  of  performing,  the  mar- 
riage ceremony,  the  divine  law  does  not  prescribe 
any-^/knd  nothing  more  was  necessary,  in  ancient 
times,  to  constitute  a  valid  marriage  than  a  mutual 
agreement,  or  actual  cohabitatioqg^The  ancient  Ro- 
mans had  three  different  modes  of  tying  the  hyme- 
^      neal  knot,  each  with  a  different  degree  of  looseness, 
f     but  none  of  them  so  firm  as  it  should  be.     The 
ceremony  has  always  varied  in  different  States,  and 
^    at  different  times  in  the  same  State,  and  should 
P^never  be  regarded  as  any  thing  more  than  a  public 
recognition  of  a  relationship  already  formed   and 
completed  between  the  parties.     Yet  as  marriage 

couraged  marriage ;  but  the  profligacy  of  the  manners  which 
then  prevailed  was  such  that  all  the  honors  and  rewards  and 
immunities  which  he  prepared  were  of  but  little  avail."  — 
Keightley^s  Hist,  of  the  Roman  Empire,  chap  i.,  p.  11. 

"  The  principal  cause  of  the  prevalent  aversion  to  marriage 
was  the  extreme  dissoluteness  of  manners  at  that  time,  exceed- 
ing anything  known  in  modern  days.  .  .  .  The  first  law  on  the 
subject  was  the  Julian  '  De  Maritandis  Ordlnibus,^  of  736 ;  and 
this  having  proved  ineffectual,  a  new  and  more  comprehensive 
law,  embracing  all  the  provisions  of  the  Julian,  and  named  the 
^  Papia-PqppcBan,^  was  passed  in  the  year  762."  —  Ibid,  chap.  2, 
p.  34. 


yvs-.^ 


^ 


56  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

is  a  matter  of  important  consequence  to  the  friends 
and  kindred  of  the  parties,  and  also  to  the  whole 
State,  involving  public  as  well  as  private  obliga- 
tions, it  is  eminently  proper  that  some  appropriate 
ceremony  should  be  performed,  and  that  it  should  \ 
be  sufficiently  public  to  leave  no  doubt  as  to  its  J 
reality.  Yet  marriages  are  made  in  heaven  ;  the 
plaim  of  the  Romish  Church  to  make  and  unmake 
/them  is  a  blasphemous  assumption.  No  ceremony 
can  add  to  their  religious  validity  ;  and  it  can  only 
be  necessary  to  their  legality  and  publicity. 


\^ 


OF  MARRIAGE.  57 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ORIGIN    OE    POLYGAMY. 

PREJUDICES  TO  BE  OVERCOME. 

Having  thus  fulfilled  mj  promise  to  analyze 
and  demonstrate  the  fundamental  laws  of  love  and 
marriage,  I  shall  now  attempt,  with  equal  candor 
and  simplicity,  to  trace  the  origin  and  indicate  the 
moral  characteristics  of  the  two  social  systems  of 
monogamy  and  polygamy,  and  to  apply  to  them 
the  same  tests  of  philosophical  analysis  and  com- 
parison. And  here  allow  me  again  to  say  that  it 
is  necessary  to  arm  ourselves  with  patient  candor, 
'or  we  cannot  appreciate  the  truth  and  justice  of 
any  fair  analysis  of  these  systems.  As  we  have 
been  brought  up  under  the  system  of  monogamy, 
we  have  inherited  the  prejudices  of  that  system ; 
and,  having  been  taught  to  look  upon  the  opposite 
one  with  detestation  and  contempt,  we  are,  on  that 
account,  but  ill  cualified  to  judge  between  them. 


58  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Let  us  remember  that,  whether  our  prejudices  are 
right  or  wrong,  they  are  prejudices  only.  "We 
have  not  stopped  to  reason  ;  we  have  been  content 
to  cherish  our  opinions  on  this  subject  without  ex- 
amination and  without  reason.  We  have  always 
accustomed  ourselves  to  believe  that  polygamy 
originated  in  barbarism  ;  that  it  is  perpetuated  by 
barbarians  only,  and  that  it  panders  to  the  basest 
and  most  depraved  of  human  passions.  But  let  us 
now  think  for  ourselves.  For  one,  I  claim  that 
right.  I  dare  to  question  the  superior  purity  of 
monogamy  ;  and  on  behalf  of  the  despised  and  per-  j 
I  secuted  system  of  polygamy,  I  venture  to  appeal  / 
'  from  the  rash  decisions  of  prejudice  to  the  solemn 
\  tribunals  of  divine  and  natural  law ;  and  in  sup- 
port of  this  appeal  I  cite  the  facts  of  sacred  and 
profane  history,  and  plead  the  inalienable  rights  of 
man. 

POLYGAMY   IS   NOT   BARBARISM. 

If  European   monogamists    have   hitherto    sur- 
passed all  other  men  in  civilization  and  social  hap- 
piness, it  is  not  on  accounts  of  their  monogamy, 
but,  no   doubt,  on   account   of  their  Christianity. 
^Even  a  perverted  Christianity,  a  corrupted   Chris-J 


OF  MARRIAGE.  59 

tianity,  a  Roman  Christianity,  is  better  than  idola- 
try or  Mohammedanism.  What,  then,  may  we  not 
hope  when  Christianity  shall  become  free  and^ 
pure,  and  restored  to  its  pristine  simplicity  and 
glory? 

(_^An  idolatrous  nation  practising  monogamy  has 
never  been  able  long  to  exist.  History  does  not 
furnish  one  example.  Such  nations  soon  become 
so  incurably  corrupt  as  to  incur  the  wrath  of  God, 
and  are  swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Neither 
civilization  nor  barbarism  ;  military  power  or  pusil- 
lanimity ;  tyranny  or  freedom ;  monarchy,  aristoc- 
racy, or  democracy  ;  literature,  art,  wealth,  genius, 
or  stupidity  has  ever  been  able  to  save  them.  Many 
such  States  and  nations  have  started  in  the  race  of 
glory  and  perpetual  empire  ;  but  each  of  them  has 
come  to  premature  decay.  Such  were  the  different 
States  of  ancient  Greece  and  ancient  Italy,  many 
of  them  distinguished  for  having  produced  men  of 
the  most  brilliant  genius  and  the  most  renowned  ex- 
perience in  the  various  arts  of  peace  and  war,  and 
several  of  them  achieving  extensive  conquests  and 
becoming  vast  empires  ;  yet  they  very  soon  collapsed 
and  went  to  ruin.     And  such  was   the   fate   of  the 


60  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

many  scores  or  perhaps  hundreds  of  the  petty  States 
of  all  Europe  before  the  establishment  of  Christian- 
ity. They  rose,  they  flourished,  they  became  licen- 
tious, they  fell.  Wave  after  wave  of  the  purer  \ 
races  of  the  polygamists  of  Asia  rolled  over  them,  j 
and  assumed  their  places  ;  and  as  these,  in  turn,  felly 
into  their  social  habits,  and  adopted  their  monogamy, 
and  became  corrupt,  they  also  became  extinct,  and 
were  succeeded  by  newer  and  purer  immigrations. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  polygamists  of  Asia  have 
preserved  their  social  purity,  and  along  with  it 
many  of  their  nationalities,  through  every  age, 
notwithstanding  their  idolatry  and  Mohammedan- 
ism. Such  are  the  nations  of  China,  Japan,  Persia,- 
and  Arabia,  whose  living  languages  and  existing 
laws  date  back  to  the  very  earliest  records  of  an- 
tiquity. An  intelligent  Christian  nation  practising 
polygamy  has  never  yet  existed,  simply  because  the 
two  institutions  have  hitherto  been  falsely  deemed 
incompatible  and  irreconcilable.  The  Gnostic  her- 
esy had  so  soon  corrupted  the  springs  of  Christian 
learning,  and  the  Grecian  and  Roman  hierarchies 
had  so  soon  usurped  the  seats  of  Christian  author- 
ity, that  the  freedom  and  simplicity  of  the  pristine 


OF  MARRIAGE.  61 

faith  were  perverted,  even  before  such  an  experi- 
ment could  be  made,  as  I  shall  fully  demonstrate  in 
the  next  chapter  ;  and  now  it  is  most  probable  that 
if  such  an  experiment  shall  ever  be  made,  it  will 
Y  be  somewhere  upon  the  continent  of  free  America. 

"  Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way ; 
The  four  first  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day,  — 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last." 


L 


Polygamy  is  not  barbarism,  for  it  has  been  main- 
tained and  supported  by  such  men  as  Abraham, 
Moses,  David,  and  Solomon ;  whose  superiors  in 
all  that  constitute  the  highest  civilization  —  knowl- 
edge, piety,  wisdom,  and  refinement  of  mind  and 
manners  —  the  world  has  never  known,  either  in 
ancient  or  modern  times.  Yet  polygamy,  though 
it  be  not  barbarism,  has  almost  always  and  every- 
where prevailed,  where  a  simple,  natural,  and  in- 
artificial state  of  society  subsists.  Its  origin  is 
coeval  with  that  of  the  human  race.  It  is  men- 
tioned before  the  flood.  It  is  mentioned  soon  after 
the  flood.  As  soon  as  mankind  were  multiplied 
upon  the  earth,  it  was  discovered  that  the  number 


62  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  women  exceeded  that  of  the  men  ;  and  also 
that  the  amorous  passions  of  the  men  were  strong- 
er than  those  of  the  women.  Polygamy  brings  both 
these  inequalities  together,  and  allows  them  to  cor- 
rect each  other.  It  furnishes  every  woman  who 
wishes  to  marry,  a  husband  and  a  home  ;  and  gives 
every  man  an  opportunity  of  expending  his  super- 
abundant vitality  in  an  honest  way. 

WHY  GOD  MADE  BUT  ONE  WOMAN. 

If  it  be  objected  that  God  created  but  one  woman 
for  Adam,  it  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  reply,  that 
both  the  man  and  the  woman  were  also  created  per- 
fect. They  were  perfect  in  health,  and  perfect  in 
morals.  But  we  are  now  imperfect  in  both  respects  ; 
and  we  now  need  a  social  system  adapted  to  men 
and  women  as  they  are.  If  humanity  shall  ever  be 
restored  to  its  pristine  strength  and  beauty,  the 
equality  of  the  sexes  will  also  be  restored,  and  there 
will  be  a  man  for  every  woman,  and  a  woman  for 
every  man  ;  a  true  woman  without  imperfection, 
whose  accomplishments  will  not  be  superficial,  nor 
whose  attractions  artificial ;  but  whose  rosy  cheeks 
and  pearly  teeth  and  swelling  breasts  and  clustering 


OF  MARRIAGE.  63 

ringlets  shall  be  all  her  own.  God  speed  the  day  ! 
Should  I  live  to  see  it,  I  would  become  an  advocate 
for  monogamy.  But,  as  it  now  is,  there  is  not  a  man 
for  every  woman  ;  and  either  some  women  must  re- 
main unmarried  and  "  waste  their  sweetness  on  the 
desert  air,"  and  be  entirely  deprived  of  their  birth- 
right, and  denied  all  matrimonial  advantages,  or 
they  may,  several  of  them,  agree  to  share  those  ad- 
::zr  vantages  in  common  with  each  other,  by  having 
single  husband  between  them.  Polygamy  does 
not  compel  them  to  do  this :  it  only  permits  them 
to  do  it  in  case  they  have  no  opportunity  to  do  bet- 
ter. On  the  other  hand,  it  does  not  compel  a  man 
to  marry  even  one  woman,  much  less  to  have  more  ; 
^  .  but,  if  the  intensity  of  his  passion  urges  him  to  sucli 
5  Sj  lengths  that  he  must  have  and  will  have  more  than 
^  ""^J^one,  it  requires  him  to  take  them  honestly  and  hon- 
J  orably,  and  to  support  them  and  be  a  true  husband 
to  them. 


POLYGAMY   TAUGHT   IK   THE   BIBLE. 

The  Sacred  Scriptures  represent  the  wisest  and 
best  men  that  ever  lived,  as  practising  polygamy 
with  the  divine  blessing  and  approval.    David  had 


64  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

seven  wives  before  he  reigned  in  Jerusalem,  "  and 
he  took  more  concubines  and  wives  out  of  Jerusa- 
lem, after  he  was  come  from  Hebron,"  for  God 
"  gave  him  the  house  of  Saul  and  the  wives  of 
Saul  into  his  bosom."  *  When  God  reproved 
Abimelech,  king  of  Gerar,  for  his  intended  adultery 
with  Sarah,  wife  of  Abraham,  he  did,  at  the  same 
time,  approve  of  his  polygamy ;  for  Abimelech 
said,  ''  In  the  integrity  of  my  heart  and  innocency 
of  my  hands  have  I  done  this."  "  Said  he  not  V^^ 
unto  me.  She  is  my  sister  ?  and  she,  even  she  J 
herself,  said,  He  is  my  brother."  And  God  said, 
"  I  know  that  thou  didst  this  in  the  integrity  of 
thy  heart :  "  "  now,  therefore,  restore  the  man  his 
wife."  "  And  God  healed  Abimelech  and  his  wife 
and  his  maid-servants."  God  could  allow  him  to 
live  in  open  polygamy,  without  reproof,  and  "  in 
the  integrity  of  his  heart,"  but  could  not  allow 
him  to  commit  adultery,  even  ignorantly.-j-  Solo- 
mon was  reproved  for  multiplying  the  number  of 
his  wives  to  an  unreasonable  and  ostentatious  de- 
gree, but  more  especially  for  having  taken  them 

»  2  Sam.  iii.  2-5, 14;  v.  13;  xii.  8.  f  Gen.  xx. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  65 

from  heathen  nations  ;  for  "  they  turned  away  his 
heart  after  other  gods  :  "  hut  these  are  the  only 
reasons  assigned  for  his  reproof,  there  being  no 
intimation  that  polygamy  was  wrong  in  itself. 
But  it  is  unnecessary  to  cite  other  examples  from 
the  Bible.  No  one  familiar  with  that  book  has 
ever  denied  that  polygamy  is  taught  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  yet  most  Christians  suppose  it  to 
be  forbidden  in  the  New.  Have  we  any  right  to 
such  a  supposition?  Are  we  right  in  entertaining 
any  supposition  on  this  subject?  If  it  is  forbidden 
in  the  New  Testament,  have  we  not  a  right  to 
demand  the  most  unequivocal  and  undoubted  proofs 
of  such  prohibition  ?  Is  the  God  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac  and  Jacob  the  Christian's  God,  or  is  he  not  ? 
Is  it  not  possible  that  this  supposition  is  an  error  ? 
And,  if  it  be  an  error,  is  it  not  possible  that  it  has 
been  one  means  of  lessening  our  reverence  for  the 
Old  Testament,  and  thereby  undermining  our  con- 
fidence in  the  Bible  as  a  whole  ?  If  this  suppo*^ 
sition  be  an  error,  has  it  not  been  tending  to 
make  infidels  of  us  all?  I  copy  the  following 
paragraph  from  an  essay  of  the  Rev.  S.  W. 
Foljambe,  recently  delivered  by  him,  at  a  Sabbath^ 


66  HISTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPRY 

school  Teachers'  Convention  at  Boston,  with  my 
most  hearty  commendation  :  — 

"  It  is  sad  to  believe  that  injadelity  in  some  form 
prevails  throughout  our  State,  yet  we  cannot 
doubt  that  it  is  even  so,  generally  covert  with  an 
outward  profession  of  regard  for  Christianity,  but 
nevertheless  real,  accompanied  by  a  disregard  and 
disbelief  of  the  scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments.  I  refer  to  this  not  as  any  proof  that 
Protestantism  or  Christianity  is  or  can  be  a 
failure,  or  that  the  Scriptures  are  in  any  real 
danger,  but  as  indicating  a  responsibility  resting 
on  us  to  maintain  and  defend  the  equal  authority 
and  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  that  "  all 
scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God  ; "  that  its 
writers,  whether  Moses  or  David,  Isaiah  or  Paul, 
Ezekiel  or  John,  were  '  holy  men  of  God  who 
wrote  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost/ 
Is  it  not  true,  that,  among  many  who  hold  to  the 
truth  and  reality  of  a  divine  revelation,  there  has 
come  to  be  a  feeling  that  in  some  way  the  New 
Testament  has  superseded  the  Old,  and  that  the 
Old  has  ceased  to  be  '  profitable  for  doctrine,  for 
correction,  for  reproof,  for  instruction  in  righteous- 


OF  MARRIAGE.  67 

ness '  ?     Now,  if  this  can  be   demonstrated,  what  ^ 
is  there  to  prove  that  in  a  still  more  advanced  stage    / 
of  spiritual  life,  as  is  claimed  by  many,  the  New 
Testament  itself  may  not  be  superseded  by  some 
wiser  interpretations  of  the  meaning  and  purpose 
of  Christ's  life,  and  the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  of   ^^^ 
John  be  superseded  by  the  gospel  of  Strauss   oryi^^^ 
E-enan ;    or  the  interpretations   of  Paul  as  to  the 
person   and  work  of  Christ  be  superseded  by  the 
interpretation  of  Parker  and  of  Music  Hall  ? 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  our  Lord  is  explicit  on  this 
point,  That  the  Jewish  Scriptures  were  not   and 
could  not  be  superseded  by  any  later   revelation 
even  by  himself:  'Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  V 
destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets :  I  am  not  come     / 
to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil ; '  and  again  — '  Had  ye  be- 
lieved Moses,  ye  would  have  believed  me,  for  he 
wrote  of  me  ; '  and  he  is  continually  quoting  them    \ 
as  authority,  showing  that  there  is  no  inconsistency 
between  the  two  revelations.     Together  they  form 
one  continuous  and  connected  divine  word.     True, 
the  Scriptures   are   composed   of  books   that   are 
cumulative  and  progressive,  but  they  are  interde- 
pendent.    The  internal  meaning  of  the  two  parts 


<: 


68  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

is  entirely  harmonious.  The  divine  Spirit  is  in 
them  both.  They  never  contradict,  but  always 
interpret,  explain,  and  illustrate  each  other." 

But  let  the  inspiration  and  perpetual  authority  of 
the  Old  Testament  be  fully  admitted,  yet  the  mod- 
ern Christian  may  say,  "  We  do  not  live  under  the 
First  Covenant,  nor  observe  the  ceremonies  of 
'  Moses  ;  but  we  live  in  the  New  Dispensation,  un- 
der the  full  light  of  the  gospel :  Christ  has  fulfilled 
the  ritual  and  emblematical  ordinances  of  the  law, 
and  set  them  aside ;  and  it  is  presumed  that  the 
ancient  marriage  laws  have  been  set  aside  among 
the  rest,  and  superseded  by  the*  purer  system  of 
monogamy."  But  this  assumption  cannot  be  sup- 
ported either  by  sufficient  testimony  or  by  valid  rea- 
soning. The  social  system  of  polygamy  had  existed 
before  the  time  of  Moses,  and  had  no  dependence 
upon  the  ceremonial  law  which  was  instituted  in  his 
day.  That  law  only  confirmed  it  as  a  pre-existent 
institution.  Marriage  laws  cannot  be  regarded  as 
merely  ritual  and  emblematical :  they  are  moral 
and  fundamental,  guarding  the  dearest  rights  and 
punishing  the  deepest  wrongs  of  mankind.  They 
are,  therefore,  equally  permanent  with  those  laws 


OF  MARRIAGE.  69 

protecting  life  and  property,  those  inculcating  obe- 
dience to  parents  and  rulers,  and  those  maintaining 
the  sanctity  of  oaths.     All  these,  together  with  the 
marriage  laws,  existed  before  the  time  of  Moses, 
and  have  survived  the  time  of  Christ.     They  are 
/  among  those  "laws"  that  Jesus  came  not  to  sw5t;e?-^  ^ 
^y^*'  but  to  ratify ;  as  Dr.  G-eorge  Campbell  of  Edin-^*"*^ 
I    vj^burgh  has,  in  Matt.  v.  17,  very  exactly  translated      / 
the  terms  natakvaai  and  rcXriQcoGai.     Hence  the  mar-  y 
riage  system  of  polygamy  never  formed  a  part  of 
that  ceremonial  dispensation  which  was  abrogated 
by  the  New  Testament ;  nor  has  it  ever  been  proved 
that  the  New  Testament  was  designed  to  affect  any 
change  in  it ;  but  the  presumption  is  that  this  new 
dispensation  has  also  left  it,  as  it  found  it,  —  abid- 
ing still  in  force.     If  any  change  were  to  be  made 
in  an  institution  of  such  long  standing,  confirmed 
by  positive  law,  it  could  obviously  be  made  only  by 
equally  positive  and  explicit  ordinances  or  enact-  -.   . 
'  ments  of  the  gospel.      But  such  enactments  are'' 
wanting.     Christ  himself  was  altogether  silent  in 
respect  to  polygamy,  not  once  alluding  to  it ;  yet 
it  was  practised  at  the  time  of  his  advent  through- 
out Judaea  and  Gralilee,  and  in  all  the  other  countries 


HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

^o/Asia  and  Africa,  and,  without  doubt,  by  some 
^^^s^^^of  his  own  disciples. 
J^\|^    The  Book  of  the  Acts  is  equally  silent  as  the  four 
.  ^  -kGrospels  are.     No  allusion  to  it  is  found  in  any  of 
^    I  ^tlie  sermons  or  instructions  or  discussions  of  the 
^s^  •*  apostles  and  early  saints  recorded  in  that  book.     It 
^as  not  because  Jesus  or  the  apostles  durst  not 
ondemn  it,  had  they  considered  it  sinful,  that  they 
^^Mid  not  speak  of  it,  for  Jesus  hesitated  not  to  de- 
|fliDunce  the  sins   of  hypocrisy,   covetousness,  and 
-Swti^ultery,  and  even  to  alter  and  amend,  apparently, 
%^  Jthe  ancient  laws  respecting  divorce  and  retaliation  ; 
^  ilq^  he  never  rebuked  them  for  their  polygamy,  nor 
^^ instituted  any  change  in  that  system.      And  this 
^  ymiform  silence,  so  far  as  it  implies  any  thing,  im- 
^  lilies  approval.     John  the  Baptist  was  thrown  into 
^  jpnson,  where  he  was  afterwards  beheaded,  for  re- 
ij   proving  King  Herod  on  account  of  his  adultery : 
Nf  ^and  we  cannot  doubt,  that,  if  he   had   considered 
rvN^polygamy  to  be  sinful,  he  would  have  mentioned  it ; 
^^or  Herod's  father  was,  just  before  that  time,  liv- 
ing with  nine  wives,  whose  names  are  recorded  by 
(^ Josephus,  in  his  "  Antiquities  of  the  Jews  ;  "  * 

*  Antiq.  Jud.,  book  17,  chap.  1,  §  3. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  71 

but  John  only  reproved  him  for  marrying  Hero- 
dias,  his  brother  Philip's  wife,  while  his  brother 
was  living.  He  administered  the  same  reproof  to 
Herod  that  Nathan  had  formerly  done  to  David, 
and  for  similar  reasons.  The  apostles  always  de- 
nounced the  sins  of  fornication  and  adultery,  but 
never  denounced  polygamy,  nor  intimated  in  any 
way  that  it  was  a  sin.  In  all  the  long  and  painful 
catalogues  of  sins  enumerated  in  the  first,  second, 
and  third  chapters  of  Romans,  many  of  which 
relate  to  the  unlawful  indulgence  of  the  amorous 
propensities,  polygamy  is  not  once  named.  It  is 
the  very  place  where  it  is  morally  certain  that  it 
would  have  been  named  if  it  were  sinful ;  and,  that 
it  is  not  there  named,  we  are  fully  warranted  to 
believe  that  it  is  not  sinful. 

MONOGAMY  OF   BISHOPS   AND   DEACONS. 

The  only  portions  of  the  Sacred  Writings 
which  seem  to  disapprove  of  polygamy  are 
found  in  the  epistles  of  Paul  concerning  the  quali- 
fications of  bishops  and  deacons.  These  pas- 
sages have  been  variously  interpreted  by  various 
commentators.      Some    suppose    that    it     forbids 


72  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

these  officers  of  the  church  from  contracting  a 
second  marriage  after  the  death  of  the  first  wife ; 
others  that  it  forbids  any  but  married  persons 
being  inducted  into  these  sacred  offices  —  that 
they  must  be  the  husbands  of  one  wife,  at  least, 
—  but  that  it  does  not  forbid  them  taking  more. 
But  the  commonly  received  opinion,  and  the  one 
to  which  I  am  myself  inclined,  is,  that  in  choos- 
ing men  for  these  offices,  such  men  should  be 
chosen  who  are  not  much  inclined  to  amorous 
pleasures,  and  each  of  whom  has  one  wife  only. 
They  should  be  men  of  peculiar  temperance  and 
sobriety.  This  implies  that  polygamy  was  still  \ 
practised  in  the  primitive  Christian  churches ;  / 
for  otherwise  it  would  have  been  superfluous  and 
irrelevant  to  mention  this  as  a  special  qualification 
in  a  candidate  for  one  of  those  offices.  And 
even  this  recommendation  applies  only  to  candi- 
dates, and  not  to  those  who  have  been  already 
ordained.  In  confirmation  of  these  views  I  here 
cite  the  authority  of  James  McKnight,  D.D.,  one  \ 
of  the  most  learned  commentators  on  the  New 
Testament. 

"As  the  Asiatic  nations    universally  practised 


OF  MARRIAGE.  73 

polygamy,  from  an  inordinate  love  of  the  pleasures 
of  the  flesh,  the  apostle  ordered,  by  inspiration, 
that  none  should  be  made  bishops  but  those,  who, 
by  avoiding  polygamy,  had  showed  themselves 
temperate  in  the  use  of  sensual  pleasures.  ...  It 
may  be  objected,  perhaps,  that  the  gospel  ought  to 
have  prohibited  the  people,  as  well  as  the  minis- 
ters of  religion,  from  polygamy  and  divorce,  if 
these  things  were  morally  evil.  As  to  divorce, 
the  answer  is,  all,  both  clergy  and  people,  were 
restrained  from  unjust  divorces  by  the  precept  of 
Christ.  With  respect  to  polygamy  being  an 
offence  against  political  prudence,  rather  than 
against  morality,  it  had  been  permitted  to  the 
Jews  by  Moses,  and  was  generally  practised  by 
the  Eastern  nations  as  a  matter  of  indifferency  ; 
it  was,  therefore,  to  be  corrected  mildly  and 
gradually,  by  example  rather  than  by  express 
precept,  without  occasioning  those  domestic  / 
troubles  and  causeless  divorces  which  must  neces-  I 
sarily  have  ensued,  if,  by  an  express  injunction  of  I 
the  apostles,  husbands,  immediately  on  their  be-  / 
coming  Christians,  had  been  obliged  to  put  away 
all  their  wives  except  one."  —  Commentary  on 
1  Tim.  iii.  2. 


r 


74  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

This  testimony  is  specially  valuable  as  being 
extorted,  by  the  force  of  truth,  from  an  avowed 
advocate  of  monogamy.  Although  it  is  highly 
colored  by  that  system,  yet  these  four  points  are 
distinctly  admitted.  1.  That  polygamy  was 
commonly  practised  by  the  primitive  Christians. 
2.  That  it  had  been  expressly  permitted  in  the 
Old  Testament.  3.  That  it  was  not  prohibited 
in  the  New  Testament.  4.  That  it  was  from 
political  and  prudential  considerations,  and  not 
from  any  immorality  in  it,  that  candidates  for 
the  ministry  were  recommended  to  abstain  from  it. 
Hence,  we  conclude  that  this  recommendation  of 
the  apostle  was  made  out  of  respect  to  the  preju- 
dices of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  under  whose 
laws  they  were  then  living,  and  who  practised  a 
corrupt  and  licentious  monogamy,  which  I  shall 
describe  in  the  next  chapter.  It  was  doubtless 
for  similar  reasons  that  the  same  apostle  recom- 
mended to  the  Corinthian  Christians  not  to  marry  ; 
but  no  one  except  a  Shaking  Quaker  or  a  Roman 
Catholic  can  believe  that  such  a  recommendation 
was  intended  to  apply  to  all  persons,  at  all  times 
and  places,   or  that  it  was  proper  then,   on  any 


OF  MARRIAGE.  75 

Other  ground   than   the  notorious   corruption    of 
Corinthian  morals.    See  Appendix,  page  253. 

Now  polygamy  is  either  right,  or  it  is  wrong.  If 
it  is  wrong,  it  is  contrary  to  the  will  of  God.  *  If 
it  is  contrary  to  the  will  of  God  now,  it  always  has 
been,  ever  since  the  fall  of  man ;  for  God  has  not 
changed,  human  nature  has  not  changed,  and  the 
mutual  relation  of  the  sexes  has  not  changed.  If- 
it  is  contrary  to  the  divine  will,  God  would  cer- 
tainly have  expressed  decided  disapprobation  of  it 
in  his  word,  and  denounced  those  who  practised 
it.  But  on  the  contrary,  it  was,  by  the  Mosaic 
law,  expressly  sanctioned,  and,  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, expressly  commanded,  as  fully  appears 
^from  Deut.  xxii.  28,  and  xxv.  5.  In  the  former 
passage  it  was  commanded  that  if  any  man 
(whether  married  or  unmarried)  had  had  illicit 
intercourse  with  an  unbetrothed  virgin,  then  he 
must  marry  her,  and  must  not  put  her  away  all 
his  life.  In  the  other  passage  it  was  commanded 
that  when  a  married  man  died  without  issue,  his 
brother  must  marry  his  widow.  And  this  com- 
mand is  positive,  whether  the  surviving  brother 
(  have  a  wife  already,  or  not ;  and  even  if  several 


erai  \ 


76  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

such  married  brothers  should  die,  and  leave  no 
offspring,  the  surviving  brother  would  be  obliged, 
bj  this  law,  to  marry  all  the  widows ;  and  in 
each  case,  the  first-born  children  would  succeed  to 
the  inheritances  of  their  mothers*  first  husbands, 
but  the  younger  children  would  belong  to  their 
own  father.  This  was  a  law  in  Israel  long  before 
the  ceremonial  law  of  Moses,  as  we  learn  from 
the  38th  chapter  of  Genesis,  where  it  is  stated 
that  Onan  the  son  of  Judah  was  required  to  marry 
the  widow  of  his  brother  Er,  and  because  he  took 
a  wicked  course  to  prevent  having  offspring  by 
her,  he  was  put  to  death  by  the  immediate  act  of 
God.  The  entire  Book  of  Ruth,  also,  constitutes 
a  beautiful  ilkistration  and  commentary  of  this 
aiicient  law ;  and  it  is  mentioned  in  the  New 
Testament  in  such  terms  as  to  imply  that  it  was 
still  in  force  in  the  time  of  Christ  (Matt.  xxii.\ 
24-28). 

POLYGAMY    APPROVED    OP    GOD. 

I  sum  up  the  divine  testimony  thus  :  If  polyga- 
my is  now  a  vice  and  a  sin,  like  adultery  or 
lying  or  stealing,  it  always   has  been   and  always 


OF  MARRIAGE.  77 

will   be  a  sin ;  and  God   would   never  have   ap- 
proved or  commanded  it :  but  we  have  seen  above, 
that  he  has  commanded  it  in  two  cases  at  least, 
viz.,  in  case  of.  the  married  man's  illicit   inter- 
course with  an  unbetrothed  virgin,  and  in  case  of 
the  married  man's  brother's  widow ;  and  in  these 
cases,  therefore,  it  cannot  be  a  sin.     In   further 
proof  of  its  innocence,  let  it  be  remembered  that 
it   was   practised   without    rebuke    by   Abraham, 
■vyhen  he  was  styled  ''  The  Friend  of  God ;  "  by  / 
/Jacob,  when  his  name  was  changed  to  Israel  on 
/  account   of    his   piety  and   his   faith ;  by   David, 
/     when  God  himself "  gave  testimony,  and   said,  I  ^^ 
VhAve  found  I)ayid  the  son  of   Jesse  a  man  after  / 
\  my   own    heart ; "    and    by   many   others   whose 
names  will  be  held  in   everlasting   remembrance, 
being  preserved  in  Holy  Writ,  long  after  those  of 
modern    pseudo-religionists,   who    now    denounce 
polygamy   as   barbarous   and    sinful,    shall    have 
perished  in  oblivion. 


78  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


V    CHAPTER  V. 

ORIGIN    OF    MONOGAMY. 

MONOGAMY  IS    THE    DISSOLUTE    DAUGHTER    OF  PA- 
GANISM  AND   KOMANISM. 

I  HAVE  demonstrated  that  monogamy  is  not  com- 
manded in  the  Bible,  and  that  it  is  not  the  doctrine 
of  Christianity.  I  shall  now  account  for  its  origin, 
by  proving  that  it  is  the  joint  oifspring  of  paganism 
and  Romanism.  The  social  system  of  European 
monogamy  is  proved  to  be  derived  from  the  ancient 
Greeks  and  Romans  (especially  from  the  latter), 
by  the  early  histories  of  the  nations  of  Europe,  and 
by  an  uninterrupted  descent  of  traditional  customs 
from  them  to  our  own  times.  It  is  one  of  those 
pagan  abominations  which  we  have  inherited,  which 
the  Roman  Church  has  sanctioned  and  confirmed, 
and  from  which  we  find  it  so  difficult  to  emancipate 
ourselves. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  79 

IMPURITY   OF  ANCIENT   GREEK  AND    ROMAN  MORALS. 

The  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  notions  of  mar- 
riage and  of  chastity  were  in  some  respects  different 
from  ours,  but  only  as  Christianity  has  made  them 
different.  We  are  ready  to  admit,  at  least  in 
theory,  what  Christianity  requires,  that  the  laws 
of  chastity  are  binding  upon  men  and  women  equal^;~^\ 
ly,  and  that  no  person  can  innocently  indulge  in  \ 
amorous  pleasure  except  with  his  own  wife  or  her  J 
own  husband.  But  among  them  this  rule  of  chas- 
tity applied  to  the  female  sex  alone.  The  other 
sex  claimed  and  exercised  their  freedom  from  it, 
without  concealment  or  palliation,  and  at  the  same 
time  without  the  loss  of  moral  character  or  of  pub- 
lic estimation.  To  be  grossly  addicted  to  whoredom 
and  seduction  was  no  dishonor :  it  was  only  when 
convicted  of  Sodomy  that  they  were  pronounced 
unchaste. 

Marriage  was  not  expected  or  intended  to  pre- 
serve the  public  purity,  or  to  secure  domestic  hap- 
piness, but  was  rather  designed  to  perpetuate  their 
heroic  races,   to  preserve    their  rich   patrimonial  x 
estates,  and  to  maintain  the  ascendency  of  their  y 


I 


80  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

aristocratic  families.  For  these  purposes  they 
guarded  the  chastity  of  their  wives  with  vigilant 
jealousy  and  punished  their  adultery  with  severity ; 
but  the  men  placed  themselves  under  no  such  re- 
strictions either  in  law  or  in  fact,  but  they  habitu- 
ally sought  their  own  pleasures  away  from  home, 
in  the  public  haunts  of  impurity,  at  the  house  of  an 
Aspasia,  of  a  Leona,  or  of  a  Messalina,  or  at  some 
other  establishment  of  their  numerous  Cyprian  and 
Corinthian  dames  ;  or,  if  they  could  not  pay  the 
extravagant  prices  demanded  by  these  celebrated 
beauties,  they  could  at  least  resort  to  their  public 
temples,  and  gratify  their  lust  among  the  prostitutes 
kept  there.* 

*  "  The  Greeks  had  but  little  pleasure  in  the  society  of  their 
wives.    At  first,  the  young  husband  only  visited  her  by  stealth: 
to  be  seen  in  company  with  her  was  a  disgrace."  —  Bulwer^s^ 
Hist,  of  Athens,  book  i.  chap.  6. 

"  In  the  times  of  Corinthian  opulence  and  prosperity,  it  is 
said  that  the  shrine  of  Venus  was  attended  by  no  less  than  one 
thousand  female  slaves  dedicated  to  her  service  as  courtesans. 
These  priestesses  of  Venus  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  wealth 
and  luxury  of  the  city."  —  Anthon's  Classical  Diet.,  art.  '•''Co~ 
rinthus." 
^Strabo,  in  his  great  work  on  Geography,  in  speaking  of  the 


OF  MARBIAQE.        '  81 

THEIR  MARRIAGES    NOT   PERMANENT. 

The  monogamy  of  the  ancient  Romans,  from  and 
after  the  time  of  two  hundred  years  at  least  before 
the  Christian  era,  did  not  require  their  marriages 
to  t)e  permanent.     The  principle  of  a  life-long  rela-\ 
/^  tionship  between  the  husband  and  wife,  which  both/ 
Moses  and  Christ  have  insisted  upon,  formed  no 
part   of  their   social  system.      Marriage,   among 
them,  was  not  so  much  a  religious  ceremony  incul- 
cating and  requiring  solemn  vows  of  binding  obli- 
gation, as  a  civil  compact,  instituted  for  purposes  X 
of  mere  present  convenience  or  family  aggrandize-/ 
ment.     It  originated  in  policy  rather  than  in  love. 
They  were  not,  of  course,  destitute  of  the  passion 

temple  of  Venus  in  Corinth  says,  "  There  were  more  than  a 
thousand  harlots,  the  slaves  of  the  temple,  who,  in  honor  of  the 
goddess,  prostituted  themselves  to  all  comers  for  hire,  and 
through  these  the  city  was  crowded,  and  became  wealthy."  — 
Book  8,  p.  151. 

"  Gravely  impressing  upon  his  wife  and  daughters  that  to  sing 
and  dance,  to  cultivate  the  knowledge  of  languages,  to  exercise 
the  taste  and  understanding,  was  the  business  of  the  hired  courte- 
san, it  was  to  the  courtesan  that  he  repaired  himself  for  the 
solace  of  his  own  lighter  hours."  —  MerivaWs  Hist,  of  the  Ro- 
mans, vol.  ii.,  chap.  33,  p.  32.  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1864. 
6 


82  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

of  love,  for  they  were  humaa  beings ;  but  that 
)assion  was  permitted  to  influence  them  but  little 
in  contracting  their  marriages.  They  systemati- 
cally degraded  their  love  into  lust.  Their  monoga- 
my required  it.  Whenever  they  loved  a  woman 
they  would  manage  to  enjoy  her  favors  without 
marriage.  Seduction,  adultery,  and  whoredom 
were  rather  the  rule  than  the  exception  among 
them;  but  marriage  was  for  other  and  more  im- 
.portant  purposes  than  those  of  love.  It  was  rather 
an  alliance  of  interests  than  of  affections,  and  an 
affinity  of  families  rather  than  of  hearts. 
'"'  And  as  policy  made  marriages,  so  policy  often 
unmade  them.  If  a  man  could,  at  any  time,  form 
a  new  alliance  which  would  give  him  more  wealth 
or  influence,  he  always  felt  himself  at  liberty  to 
divorce  his  wife,  and  form  that  new  alliance.  It 
was  not  uncommon,  among  them,  for  a  man  to 
have  had  half  a  dozen  different  wives,  in,  perhaps, 
as  many  years. 

CONSEQUENCES   OF   THEIR   FREQUENT   DIVORCES. 

Imbecility  and  barrenness,  the  usual  penalties 
which   Nature   inflicts  upon  the  violators  of  the 


OF  MARRIAGE.  83 

marriage  laws,  came  upon  them.  Their  children 
were  few  and  short  lived,  and  in  order  to  maintain 
their  family  influence,  and  transmit  their  names  and 
their  wealth  to  future  generations,  which  it  was 
their  great  ambition  to  do,  they  were  obliged  to 
resort  to  the  expedient  of  very  frequent  adoptions, 
by  taking  the  children  of  distant  relations,  or  of 
those  allied  to  them  by  marriage,  and  calling  them 
their  own.  And  such  were  the  frequency  of  their 
divorces,  and  the  intricacy  of  their  relationships 
caused  by  their  numerous  adoptions,  that  it  ha^ 
been  almost  impossible  for  the  best  historians  and 
biographers  to  give  us  any  intelligible  account  of 
their  families.  Such  authors  as  Gibbon,  Anthon, 
Keightley,  and  Merivale,  who  are  usually  accurate 
in  other  respects,  are  found  utterly  at  fault,  when 
they  undertake  to  state  the  relationship  which  the 
most  eminent  personages  of  Roman  history  bear  to 
one  another.* 

.^  *  Contradictions  and  Inaccuracies  of  Eminent  Historians,  y, 
Anthon.  —  In  art.  "  Drusus,"  in  his  Classical  Dictionary,  Dr. 
Charles  Anthon  says  that  Drusus  "  was  bom  three  months  after 
his  mother's  marriage  with  Augustus;  "  but  in  art.  "  Livia"  he 
says, "  She  had  already  borne  two  sons  to  her  first  husband,  viz., 
Tiberius  and  Drusus,  and  was  six  months  gone  in  pregnancy 


84  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

THE    MONOGAMY   OF   THE   C^SARS. 

In  order  to  give  some  just  conception  of  Ro- 
man monogamy  at  that  time  when  it  first  came  in 

with  another  child,  which  was  the  only  one  she  ever  had  after 
her  union  with  Augustus,  and  which  died  almost  at  the  moment 
of  its  birth." 

In  art.  "Julia  II.,"  he  calls  her  the  mother  of  Augustus;  and 
in  art.  "  Augustus,"  he  says  his  mother  was  Atia,  the  daughter 
of  Julia. 

In  art.  "  Julia  IV.,"  he  calls  Scribonia  the  first  wife  of  Au- 
gustus; but  in  art.  "  Augustus,"  he  calls  her  his  third  wife. 

In  art.  "  Messalina,"  he  says  she  was  the  first  wife  of  Clau- 
dius; and  in  art.  "^lia  Paetina,"  he  says  ^lia  was  the  former 
wife  of  Claudius,  and  that  she  was  repudiated  to  make  way  for 
Messalina.  And,  according  to  Suetonius,  ^Elia  was,  in  fact,  the 
fourth,  and  Messalina  the  fifth,  of  his  wives. 

In  art.  "  Julius  Ceesar,"  he  says  his  first  wife  was  divorced  in 
consequence  of  the  affair  of  Clodius;  but  in  art.  "  Clodius,"  he 
says  it  was  against  Pompeia  that  Clodius  had  illicit  designs,  and 
in  art.  "  Pompeia,"  he  says  she  was  Csesar's  third  wife,  &c. 

Keightley. —  In  his  Hist,  of  Rom.  Empire,  p.  11,  he  says, 
Scribonia  was  the  first  wife  of  Augustus;  but  she  was  his  third. 
On  the  same  page  he  says  Tiberius  married  Agrippina,  who  was 
the  younger  daughter  of  Agrippa:  but  Tiberius  did  not  marry 
her,  but  he  married  Vipsania,  her  older  sister ;  and  his  brother 
Drusus  married  Agrippina,  and  he  was  the  only  husband  she 
ever  had,  which  was  a  remarkable  circumstance  for  Roman 
ladies  in  those  days. 

On  the  same  page  he  repeats  the  error  of  Anthon  mentioned 


OF  MARRIAGE.  85 

contact  with  Christianity,  and  when  it  began   to 
impose  its  social  system  upon  the  other  nations  of 

above,  —  that  Drusus  was  born  after  Ms  mother's  marriage  with      i      '' 
Augustus.    Two  similar  errors  occur  on  p.  13.  \    t 

^„^-^  LiDDELL.  —  On  p.  726  of  Dr.  Liddell's  Hist,  of  Eome,  there 
- —    are  three  errors  of  this  kind  within  the  limits  of  twice  as  many      *■      , 
lines,  viz.,  he  calls  the  name  of  one  of  Augustus's  wives  Clodia  for      ^"^ 
Claudia;  he  says  Scribonia  was  his  second  wife,  for  his  third;       .  \ 
and  says  that  Livia,  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  to  Augustus, 
was  pregnant  of  her  second  child  instead  of  her  third.    Thus  it 
is  demonstrated  that  very  respectable  modern  historians  are 
accustomed  to  perpetuate  error  by  compiling  and  copying  from 
each  other,  when  they  should,  every  one  of  them,  go  back  to 
the  original  and  exact  authorities,  and  thus  eliminate  the  truth. 
Messrs.  Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York,  have  republished  the 
above  work  of  Dr.  Liddell,  so  faithfully  as  to  give  us  page  for 
page,  line  for  line,  and  word  for  word,  an  exact  reprint  of  the 
^T  English  edition  by  John  Murray;  reproducing  not  only  such 

historical  blunders  as  those  above  noticed,  but  even  the  most  ^ 

obvious  typographical  errors;  e.g.,  on  p.  250,  under  the  bust  ^ 

of  Scipio  there  is  L.,  for  Lucius  Scipio  Africanus,  instead  of  P.,  « 

for  Publius  Scipio  Africanus ;  and  on  p.  453,  footnote,  we  are  *^^^^l;;>^ 
referred  to  the  end  of  chapter  37,  for  the  bust  of  Ennius,  when 
it  is  not  there,  but  at  the  end  of  chapter  50,  &c.  Such  exact 
faithfulness  in  following  copy  is  worthy  of  the  well-known  skil- 
fulness  of  the  Chinese  tailor,  who,  when  about  to  make  a  new 
garment  in  European  style,  took  home  an  old  one  for  a  pattern, 
which  he  succeeded  in  imitating  with  exactness,  even  to  the 
patches. 


I 


86  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Europe  (for  these  two  events  are  quite  synchro- 
nous), I  will  now,  as  briefly  as  possible,  give 
some  account  of  the  domestic  life  and  manners  of 
the  six  imperial  Caesars,  who  governed  Rome  at 
that  period.  In  this  account  I  shall  enumerate 
their  many  marriages,  and  their  numerous  di- 
vorces and  adoptions,  and  state  their  exact  rela- 
tionship to  each  other.  By  this  means,  I  hope  to 
be  able  to  explaiil  the  complexity  of  E-oman  affini- 
ties, which  has  baffled  the  apprehension  of  so 
many  acute  and  learned  historians,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  exhibit  the  original  nature  and  true 
spirit  of  Roman  monogamy.  "  Ex  pede  Hercu- 
lem  ; "  from  the  Caesars  let  us  learn  the  Romans. 

I  should  hesitate  to  pollute  my  pages  with  these 
delineations  of  Roman  manners,  if  the  nature  of 
my  treatise  did  not  require  it.  But  it  is  necessary 
to  the  plan  and  scope  of  this  work  that  the  ana- 
lytical examination  of  the  origin  and  early  history 
of  our  present  marriage  system  should  be  con- 
ducted with  philosophical  exactness,  — an  exactness 
that  requires  explicit  facts,  which  I  have  spared 
no  time  nor  labor  to  search  out,  and  which  I  am 
not  at  liberty  to  withhold,  however  revolting  they 


OF  MARRIAGE.  87 

may  be.  In  order  that  modern  monogamists  may 
clearly  see  the  justice  or  tlie  injustice  of  the 
boasted  claims  of  their  system  to  superior  purity 
and  virtue,  it  is  very  proper  that  they  look  to  the 
rock  whence  they  were  hewn  and  to  the  hole  of 
the  pit  whence  they  were  digged. 

The  single  family  of  the  Caesars  is  selected  as 
an  example,  not  because  it  is  the  worst  example 
which  those  times  produced,  for,  on  the  contrary, 
there  is  abundant  evidence  that  Sylla  and  Catiline 
and  Clodius  and  Sejanus,  and  the  emperors  Domi- 
tian  and  Commodus  and  Caracalla,  and  many 
others  of  their  contemporaries,  exceeded  the 
Caesars  in  profligacy  ;  but  the  domestic  history  of 
the  latter  family  is  given,  because  it  is  the  most 
authentic,  and  the  most  familiar  to  all  classical 
and  historical  scholars.  Caius  Seutonius  Tran- 
quillus,  commonly  called  Suetonius,  is  the  princi- 
pal authority  for  the  facts  cited ;  and  his  testi- 
mony is  confirmed  by  all  the  other  authorities  of 
his  own  age,  and  fully  allowed  by  those  of  every 
subsequent  age.  As  he  was  born  A.D.  70,  very 
near  the  time  of  those  whose  lives  he  records  ;  as 
he  has  maintained   a  reputation    for  candor  and 


88  HISTORY  AND-  PHILOSOPHY 

impartiality;  as  he  was  private  secretary  to  the 
Emperor  Hadrian,  and  had  access  to  the  secret 
archives  of  the  Cassars,  and  often  alludes  to  their 
handwriting,  —  no  one  has  ever  questioned  either 
his  authenticity  or  his  credibility. 

1.  Julius  C^sar. — Caius  Julius  Caesar,  the  dic- 
tator, married  successively  four  wives,  whose  names 
were,  1.  Cossutia,  2.  Cornelia,  3.  Pompeia,  and,  4. 
Calpurnia.  Cossutia  was  a  wealthy  heiress,  and 
was  married  for  her  money ;  but  she  was  divorced 
before  Ciesar  was  eighteen  years  of  age  (which  was, 
according  to  Roman  law,  during  the  first  year  of 
his  majority),  upon  the  occasion  of  the  triumph  of 
the  party  of  Marius,  to  which  Caesar  had  attached 
himself;  when  the  ambitious  youthful  politician 
and  future  conqueror  was  permitted  to  marry 
Cornelia,  the  daughter  of  Cornelius  Cinna  the 
consul,  and  the  friend  and  colleague  of  Marius ; 
by  which  alliance  Caesar  brought  himself  at  once 
into  public  notice,  and  began  to  aspire  to  the 
highest  offices  of  state.  Cornelia  died  young, 
after  having  given  birth  to  Caesar's  only  legitimate 
child,  a  daughter  named  Julia ;  who  was  married 
to  Pompey  the  Great,  at  the  formation  of  the  first 


OF  MARRIAGE.  89 

Triumvirate,  but  who  died  without  issue.  Pom- 
peia,  Ccesar's  third  wife,  was  divorced,  in  favor  of 
Calpuruia,  who  survived  him.  He  repudiated 
Pompeia  in  consequence  of  the  affair  of  the  in- 
famous Clodius,  who  had  introduced  himself  into 
CtEsar's  house,  disguised  in  female  apparel, 
for  the  purpose  of  assailing  the  virtue  of  Pom- 
peia, at  the  festival  of  the  Bona  Dea,  when,  by 
law  and  by  custom,  it  was  deemed  the  greatest 
sacrilege  for  any  male  to  be  found  upon  the  prem- 
ises. Csesar  at  once  divorced  his  wife,  but 
brought  no  charge  against  Clodius ;  but  he  was 
tried  for  the  sacrilege  upon  the  accusation  of 
Cicero.  When  Caesar  was  called  as  a  witness, 
and  was  asked  why  he  had  put  away  his  wife,  he 
answered  with  the  proud  remark,  that  his  wife's 
chastity  must  not  only  be  free  from  corruption, 
but  must  also  be  above  suspicion.  Yet  Caesar 
himself,  who  made  this  memorable  remark,  was 
excessively  addicted  to  gross  sensuality,  and  was 
the  father  of  several  illegitimate  children.  Sue- 
tonius says  that  he  committed  adultery  with  many 
ladies  of  the  highest  quality  in  Rome ;  among 
whom  he  specifies  Posthumia  the  wife  of  Servius 


90  HISTORY  AKD  PHILOSOPHY 

Sulpitius,  LoUia  the  wife  of  Aulus  Gabinius,  Ter- 
tullia  the  wife  of  Marcus  Crassus,  Mutia  the  wife 
of  Pompey  the  Great,  Eunoe  the  wife  of  Bogudes, 
Cleopatra  Queen  of  Egypt,  and  Servilia  the 
mother  of  Marcus  Brutus,  to  whom  he  presented 
a  pearl  costing  six  millions  of  sesterces  (equal 
to  two  hundred  thirty-two  thousand,  one  hundred 
and  seven  dollars)  ;  at  the  same  time  seducing 
her  daughter  Tertia.  Yet  in  another  paragraph 
Suetonius  says  the  only  stain  upon  Csesar's  chastity 
was  his  having  committed  Sodomy  with  Nicomedes, 
King  of  Bithynia ;  which  proves  what  has  be- 
fore been  said,  that  the  Romans  did  not  consider 
fornication,  or  even  adultery,  as  constituting  un- 
chastity  in  men,  but  only  in  'women ;  and  that 
they  expected  and  permitted  licentiousness  in  the 
most  respectable  men,  as  a  necessary  part  of  their 
social  system  of  monogamy.  It  is  evidently  with 
similar  opinions  '  of  their  social  system  that  Dr. 
Liddell  thus  sums  up  the  character  of  Caesar:  — 
"  Thus  died  '  the  foremost  man  in  all  the  world,* 
a  man  who  failed  in  nothing  that  he  attempted. 
He  might,  Cicero  thought,  have  been  a  great 
orator  :  his  '  Commentaries '  remain  to  prove  that 


OF  MARBIAGE.  91 

he  was  a  great  writer.  As  a  general,  he  had  few 
superiors  ;  as  a  statesman  and  politician,  no  equal. 
His  morality  in  domestic  life  was  not  better  or 
worse  than  commonly  prevailed  in  those  licentious 
days.  He  indulged  in  profligate  amours  freely 
and  without  scruple  ;  but  public  opinion  reproached 
him  not  for  this.  He  seldom,  if  ever,  allowed 
pleasure  to  interfere  with  business,  and  here  his 
character  forms  a  notable  contrast  to  that  of 
Sylla,"  &c.  * 

2.  Augustus.  —  He  was  the  grand-nephew  and 
adopted  son  of  Caesar,  being  the  grandson  of  his 
sister  Julia,  wife  of  Marcus  Atius.  Their  daughter, 
named  Atia  (sometimes  written  Attia  or  Accia), 
married  Caius  Octavius,  and  became  the  mother  of 
Augustus  and  his  sister  Octavia.  His  name,  at 
first,  was  identical  with  that  of  his  father,  Caius 
Octavius  ;  but  Julius  Caesar,  having  failed  of  any 
direct  male  heir,  adopted  him  in  his  last  will  and 
testament,  as  his  son ;  and,  upon  the  publica- 
tian  of  the  will,  he  assumed  his  adopted  father's 

*  Suet.  Vit.  Jul.  Caesar,  par.  40-50.  Liddell's  Hist.  Rome: 
London,  1857;  book  7.  Anthon's  Class.  Diet.,  art.  "Caesar, 
Mutia,"  &c. 


92  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

family  name :  twenty  years  afterwards  the  addi- 
tional name  or  title,  Augustus,  was  conferred  upon 
him  by  vote  of  the  Senate,  and  then  his  full  name 
became  Caius  Julius  Caesar  Octavianus  Augustus. 
Like  his  great-uncle,  Augustus  had  four  wives, 
named,  1.  Servilia  ;  2.  Claudia  ;  3.  Scribonia ;  and, 
4.  Livia  Drusilla,  whom  he  successively  married 
and  successively  divorced,  except  the  last,  who  sur- 
vived him.  And  like  Caesar  he  had  but  one  child 
—  a  daughter  —  also  named  Julia,  who  was  the 
daughter  of  his  third  wife  Scribonia.  This  wife 
he  divorced  soon  after  he  obtained  supreme  power, 
and  at  the  same  time  married  Livia  Drusilla. 
She  was  already  married  to  Claudius  Nero :  she 
had  borne  her  husband  two  sons,  and  was  then  six 
months  advanced  in  pregnancy  with  her  third  child  ; 
but  Augustus  demanded  her  on  account  of  her 
beauty  and  accomplishments,  and  her  husband 
durst  not  refuse  the  demand.  She  was  therefore 
divorced  from  Nero,  and  married  to  Augustus. 
Her  child  was  born  not  long  afterwards,  and  died 
at  birth.  She  was  at  this  time  twenty  years  of 
age,  and  highly  educated.  She  had  already  trav- 
elled in  foreign  countries,  and,  to  the  fascinations 


OF  MARRIAGE,  93 

of  rare  personal  beauty,  she  added  the  charms  of  a 
cultivated  mind. 

Augustus's  only  child,  Julia,  was  married  three 
times.  Her  first  marriage  was  to  Marcellus,  her 
cousin,  only  son  of  Octavia,  her  father's  sister. 
Marcellus  died  young,  much  lamented,  and  left  no 
issue.  Augustus  had,  some  time  before,  compelled 
Agrippa,  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  to  di- 
vorce his  wife  Pompeia,  and  marry  Marcella,  his 
sister  Octavia's  daughter  ;  but  now,  on  the  death  of 
Marcellus,  he  commanded  Agrippa  to  divorce  his 
niece,  Marcellus's  sister,  and  marry  his  daughter, 
Marcellus's  widow.  By  this  second  marriage,  Julia 
had  five  children,  three  of  whom  were  sons,  the 
youngest  of  which  was  born  after  his  father's  death 
and  his  mother's  third  marriage,  and  was  named 
Agrippa  Posthumus :  the  other  two  sons  were 
called  Caius  and  Lucius.  This  final  marriage  of 
Julia  was  to  Tiberius  Nero,  the  stepson  of  Augus- 
tus, and  was  without  issue :  it  will  be  alluded  to 
again  under  the  notice  of  Tiberius.  Julia  was  one 
of  the  most  dissolute  women  of  that  dissolute  age. 
And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  age  and  the 
monogamous  system  were  even  more  dissolute  than 


94  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  women,  and  caused  them  to  become  so  when 
they  were  not  so.  The  chastity  of  the  Roman  ma- 
trons and  virgins  was  prized  and  honored  as  highly 
by  themselves,  and  by  their  husbands  and  fathers 
and  brothers,  as  it  has  ever  been  among  any  people 
in  the  world ;  as  the  legends  of  Lucretia  and  of 
Virginia  and  others  can  testify.  The  ordinances 
of  God  and  of  Nature  in  behalf  of  female  purity 
were  enforced  among  them,  both  by  their  ancient 
traditions  and  by  their  current  laws ;  and  all  com- 
bined to  cause  them  to  preserve  their  chastity  to 
the  last  possible  extremity.  But  that  extremity 
had,  with  many  of  them,  been  reached.  The  un- 
bounded license  of  the  other  sex,  permitted  by 
public  opinion  to  be  practised  with  the  utmost  im- 
punity ;  the  scant  and  insufficient  opportunities 
for  lawful  marriages,  and  the  frequent,  unjust,  and 
arbitrary  divorces  from  those  marriages  ;  in  fine, 
the  whole  theory  of  monogamy,  —  finally  drove  the 
women  to  desperate  recklessness  and  ruin.  It  had 
been  Julia's  happy  lot  to  be  the  wife  of  two  hon- 
orable men,  both  eminent  for  their  manliness,  — 
Marcellus  and  Agrippa.  She  had  also  been  the 
happy  mother  of  five  healthful  children.    And  now, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  95 

while  still  young,  she  found  herself  hastily  and  for- 
cibly united  to  a  man  against  his  will ;  and  that 
man  a  monster  and  a  beast.  It  is  not  strange  that 
she  fell,  nor  that,  in  her  fall,  she  dragged  down 
many  others  with  her.  Her  exalted  rank  easily  se- 
duced some  of  the  noblest  men  of  Rome  to  become 
her  paramours.  "  And  she  became  at  length  so 
devoid  of  shame  and  prudence  as  to  carouse  and 
revel  openly,  at  night,  in  the  Forum,  and  even  on 
the  Rostra.  Augustus  had  already  had  a  suspicion 
that  her  mode  of  life  was  not  quite  correct,  and, 
when  convinced  of  the  full  extent  of  her  depravity, 
his  anger  knew  no  bounds.  He  communicated  his 
domestic  misfortune  to  the  Senate  ;  he  banished  his 
dissolute  daughter  to  the  Isle  of  Pandateria,  on  the 
coast  of  Campania,  whither  she  was  accompanied 
by  her  mother  Scribonia.  He  forbade  her  there 
the  use  of  wine  and  of  all  delicacies  in  food  or 
dress,  and  prohibited  any  person  to  visit  her  with- 
out his  special  permission.  He  caused  a  bill  of 
divorce  to  be  sent  her  in  the  name  of  her  husband 
Tiberius,  of  whose  letters  of  intercession  for  her  he 
took  no  heed.  He  constantly  rejected  all  the  solici- 
tations of  the  people  for  her  recall ;  and  when,  one 


96  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

time,  they  were  extremely  urgent,  he  openly  prayed 
that  they  might  have  wives  and  daughters  like 
her."  Her  confidential  servant  and  freed  woman, 
Phoebe,  having  hanged  herself  when  her  mistress's 
profligacy  was  made  known,  Augustus  declared 
that  he  would  rather  be  the  father  of  Phoebe  than 
of  Julia.  This  treatment  of  his  daughter,  and  this 
remark  concerning  her,  is  another  confirmation  of 
the  different  regard  had  in  those  times  to  the  un- 
chaste conduct  of  women  and  of  men  ;  for  Augustus 
himself  was  a  seducer  and  an  adulterer,  and  was 
as  profligate  as  his  uncle  Julius.  Suetonius  de- 
clares, that  he  constantly  employed  men  to  pimp 
for  him,  and  that  they  took  such  freedom  in  select- 
ing the  most  beautiful  women  for  his  embraces, 
that  they  compelled  "  both  matrons  and  ripe  vir- 
gins to  strip  for  a  complete  examination  of  their 
persons."  He  also  says,  upon  the  authority  of  Marc 
Antony,  that  at  an  entertainment  at  his  house,  "  he 
once  took  the  wife  of  a  man  of  consular  rank  from 
the  table,  in  the  presence  of  her  husband,  into  his 
bedchamber,  and  that  he  brought  her  again  to  the 
entertainment  with  her  ears  very  red  and  her  hair 
in  great  disorder,"  plainly  implying  that  every  one 
could  see  that  he  had  ravished  her. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  97 

But  it  is  the  judgment  of  that  distinguished  scholar 
and  historian,  Dr.  Liddell,  that  in  these  "  and  other  -—^ 
less  pardonable  immoralities  there  was  nothing  to 
shock  the  feelings  of  Romans  ;  "  and  Keightley  thus 
sums  up  his  character.  "  In  his  public  charac- 
ter, as  sovereign  of  the  Roman  empire,  few  princes 
will  be  found  more  deserving  of  praise  than  Augus- 
tus. He  cannot  be  justly  charged  with  a  single 
cruel,  or  even  harsh  action,  in  the  course  of  a  peri- 
od of  forty-four  years.  On  the  contrary,  he  seems 
in  every  act  to  have  had  the  welfare  of  the  people 
at  heart.  In  return,  never  was  prince  more  entirely 
beloved  by  all  orders  of  his  subjects  ;  and  the  title 
'  Father  of  his  Country,'  so  spontaneously  bestowed 
upon  him,  is  but  one  among  many  proofs  of  the 
sincerity  of  their  affection."  "  He  was  surrounded 
by  no  pomp  ;  no  guards  attended  him  :  no  officers  of 
the  household  were  to  be  seen  in  his  modest  dwell- 
ing ;  he  lived  on  terms  of  familiarity  with  his 
friends ;  he  appeared  like  any  other  citizen,  as  a 
witness  in  courts  of  justice,  and  in  the  senate  gave 
his  vote  as  an  ordinary  member.  He  was  plain  and 
simple  in  his  mode  of  living,  using  only  the  most 
ordinary  food,  and  wearing  no  clothes  but  what 

r 


98  HISTORY  AND  PIIILOSOPHT 

were  woven  and  made  by  his  wife,  sister,  and 
daughter.  In  all  his  domestic  relations  he  was 
kind  and  affectionate  ;  he  was  a  mild  and  indulgent 
master,  and  an  attached  and  constant  friend."  * 

3.  Tiberius.  — Tiberius  was  the  son  of  Claudius 
Nero  and  Li  via  Drusilla.  He  was  not  at  all  related 
by  blood  to  the  Julian  family,  but  belonged  by  birth 
to  the  ancient  Claudian  gens  ;  being  allied  to  the 
former  family  only  by  marriage  and  adoption.  His 
mother  married  Augustus  when  he  was  five  years 
of  age  ;  he  himself  married  Julia,  Augustus's  only 
daughter,  when  he  was  thirty  ;  and  Augustus  adopted 
him  as  his  son  when  he  was  forty-five  :  so  that  he  was 
at  once  the  step-son,  the  son-in-law,  and  the  adopted 
son  of  Augustus.  His  name,  at  first,  was  Tiberius 
Claudius  Drusus  Nero  ;  to  which,  after  his  adoption 
by  Augustus,  he  added  simply  Caesar.  Augustus, 
with  his  characteristic  prudence,  as  soon  as  he  per- 
ceived that  direct  heirs  in  the  male  line  were  likely 
to  fail  him,  began  to  make  provision  for  the  per- 
petuation of  his  name  and  fortune,  as  well  as  for 

*  Suet.  Vit.  Aug.  par.  60-69 ;  Liddell's  Hist,  of  Rome,  book  7; 
Keightley's  Hist.  Rom.  Emp.,  chaps.  1,  2. 


OF  MABRIAGE.  99 

the  preservation  of  the  peace  of  the  empire,  by  mak- 
ing sons  by  adoption.  He  first  adopted  his  two 
oldest  grandsons,  Caius  and  Lucius  Agrippa,  in  their 
early  childhood ;  but  they  both  died  during  the 
lifetime  of  Augustus,  and  left  no  issue,  —  Lucius  at 
the  age  of  nineteen  years  ;  and  two  years  afterwards, 
Caius,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four.*  Drusus  Nero, 
the  younger  brother  of  Tiberius,  and  the  favorite 
step-son  of  Augustus,  had  also  died  before  them  ;  but 
he  had  left  two  sons,  Germanicus  and  Claudius. 
These  with  Tiberius,  and  his  only  son  Drusus,  by 
his  first  wife  Vipsania,  and  Agrippa  Posthumus, 
the  only  remaining  sou  of  Julia,  were  all  the  males 
allied  to  Augustus.  Upon  the  death  of  Caius,  there- 
fore, A.D.  6,  Augustus  adopted  both  Agrippa  Pos- 
thumus and  Tiberius,  and  caused  Tiberius  at  the 
same  time  to  adopt  Germanicus :  so  that  all  the 
males  of  the  family  then  became  Caesars,  except 
Claudius  Nero  ;  but  he  was  considered  foolish,  and 
was  not  included.     Tiberius,  as  has  been  observed, 

*  Caius  married  Livilla,  sister  to  Germanicus,  and  grand- 
niece  to  Augustus,  but  had  no  offspring;  his  widow  afterwards 
married  Drusus,  son  of  Tiberius,  by  whom  she  had  two  children, 
Tiberius  and  Julia. 


100  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

was,  at  this  time,  forty-five  years  of  age  ;  and  each 
of  the  three  young  men,  Agrippa,  Germanicus,  and 
Drusus,  was  about  nineteen. 

Tiberius  was  married  twice ;  first  to  Vipsania, 
eldest  daughter  of  Agrippa,  and  after  divorcing  her, 
as  usual,  he  married  Julia,  Agrippa's  widow.  It 
is  but  justice  to  Tiberius,  to  say  that  both  the  di- 
vorce and  the  marriage  were  hateful  to  him,  and 
were  consummated  only  upon  the  order  of  Augus- 
tus. He  had  lived  happily  with  Vipsania,  who  was 
the  mother  of  his  only  son,  and  who  was  then  preg- 
nant with  her  second  child,  while  Julia  was  also 
pregnant  with  her  fifth  child  by  Agrippa. 

Upon  the  death  of  Augustus,  Tiberius  command- 
ed his  step-brother  Agrippa  Posthumus  to  be  put  to 
death,  and  assumed  sole  command  of  the  empire. 
His  first  order  was  but  a  sample  of  his  government ; 
for  he  soon  became  one  of  the  most  odious  tyrants 
that  ever  cursed  the  world.  His  vices  were  of  the 
most  infamous  character,  and  comprised  all  that  are 
alluded  to  in  the  first  chapter  of  PauFs  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  and  for  which  the  ancient  city  of  Sodom 
was  destroyed  by  fire.  In  order  to  give  loose  rein 
to  his  worse  than   beastly  propensities,  he  retired 


OF  MARRIAGE.  101 

from  Rome  to  that  lovely  sequestered  island  in  the 
Bay  of  Naples,  which  was  then  called  Capreag, 
and  which  in  modern  Italian  is  now  named  Capri. 
"But,"  says  Keightley,  "  this  delicious  retreat  was 
speedily  converted  by  the  aged  prince  into  a  den  ot 
infamy,  such  as  has  never,  perhaps,  found  its  equal ; 
and  it  almost  chills  the  blood  to  read  the  details  of 
the  horrid  practices  in  which  he  indulged  amid 
the  rocks  of  Capreae."  Like  all  the  other  Caesars, 
Tiberius  left  no  son.  His  son  Drusus  was  married, 
and  had  a  son  and  a  daughter  ;  but  he  was  poisoned 
by  his  own  wife  Livilla,  and  died  during  his  father's 
lifetime.  The  grandson  named  Tiberius,  and  the 
grand-daughter  named  Julia,  both  survived  him. 
His  adopted  son  Germanicus,  after  achieving  an 
excellent  reputation  as  a  man  and  a  military  com- 
mander, had  also  died,  about  five  years  after  the 
accession  of  Tiberius,  at  the  age  of  thirty-four  years, 
attributing  his  death  to  slow  poison  secretly  admin- 
istered by  the  command  of  his  adopted  father. 
Germanicus  left  nine  children ;  but  all  the  sons 
were  destroyed  before  the  death  of  Tiberius,  except 
one,  named  Caius,  but  commonly  called  Caligula. 
Tiberius  therefore  left  two  male  heirs  only,  —  Caius 


102  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Caligula,  his  grandson  by  adoption,  and  Tiberius, 
his  grandson  by  birth.* 

4.  Caligula.  —  Tiberius,  by  his  last  will,  had  ap- 
pointed his  two  grandsons  his  joint  and  equal  heirs  ; 
but  Gerraanicus,  the  father  of  Caligula,  had  always 
been  greatly  beloved  by  the  people,  while  Tiberius  had 
been  hated.  The  will  was  therefore  unanimously  set 
aside,  and  the  sole  power  conferred  upon  Caligula. 
Thus  was  the  line  of  the  Caesars  still  continued  by 
adoption.  Caligula  was  born  A.D.  12,  and  became 
emperor  at  twenty-five  years  of  age,  A.D.  37.  He 
was  married  four  times.  His  wives'  names  were, 
1.  Junia  Claudilla ;  2.  Livia  Orestilla ;  3.  Lollia 
PauUina  ;  and,  4.  Milonia  Caesonia.  The  first  died, 
the  next  two  were  divorced,  the  last  survived  him. 
Soon  after  the  death  of  Junia,  which  was  some 
time  before  he  attained  the  supreme  power,  he  took 
Ennia,  the  wife  of  Macro,  as  his  favorite  mistress, 
promising  to  procure  a  divorce  from  her  husband, 
and  to  marry  her  himself  when  he  should  attain 
the  empire  ;  and  Macro  appears  to  have  acquiesced 
in  this    arrangement,  selling  his  wife's  virtue  and 

*  Suet.;  Keightley;  Aiitbon. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  103 

the  honor  of  his  house  for  such  rewards  and  emolu- 
ments as  Caligula  was  pleased  to  accord  to  him. 
But  in  the  second  year  of  his  administration,  instead 
of  fulfilling  his  engagements  to  Ennia  and  her  hus- 
band, he  neglected  and  disgraced  them ;  so  that 
they  both  committed  suicide. 

Caligula  then  took  his  own  sister  Drusilla,  and 
lived  in  incest  with  her,  having  forced  her  husband, 
Lucius  Cassius,  to  divorce  her  for  that  purpose  ; 
but,  in  order  to  cover  the  affair,  he  caused  her  to  be 
married  to  one  of  his  attendants,  Marcus  Lepidus, 
his  cousin,  with  whom  he  was  at  the  same  time 
practising  the  still  more  horrid  and  unnatural  crime 
of  Sodomy.  Upon  the  death  of  this  sister,  which 
occurred  during  the  same  year,  he  mourned  for  her 
with  the  most  extravagant  grief,  and  caused  her 
henceforth  to  be  worshipped  as  a  goddess  ;  building 
a  temple  and  consecrating  priests  in  her  honor. 
His  own  solemn  oath  ever  after  was,  "  By  the  divin- 
ity of  Drusilla." 

He  next  married  Livia  Orestilla ;  and  in  this 
strange  and  cruel  manner.  He  had  been  invited  to 
the  wedding-feast  of  Caius  Piso,  a  man  belonging 
to  one  of  the  noblest  families  of  Rome,  whose  bride 


104  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

was  this  same  Livia.  Caligula  accepted  the  invi- 
tation ;  the  marriage  ceremony  took  place,  and  the 
feast  was  at  its  height,  when,  struck  with  the  beauty 
of  the  bride,  he  resolved  to  appropriate  her  to  himself, 
and  saying  to  Piso,  "  Do  not  touch  my  wife,"  he  took 
her  home  with  him.  The  next  day  he  caused  proc- 
lamation to  be  made  for  the  information  of  the 
Roman  public,  that  he  had  purveyed  himself  a  wife 
after  the  manner  of  Augustus.  It  is  not  strange 
that  under  such  circumstances  he  did  not  find  her 
an  agreeable  consort,  for  her  affections  had  been 
given  to  Piso,  and  with  him  only  could  she  be  happy. 
He  therefore  divorced  her  again,  within  three  days 
of  her  marriage,  but  would  not  permit  her  to  have 
her  former  husband.  • 

The  occasion  of  his  marrying  his  next  wife,  Lollia 
Paullina,  was  equally  strange,  but  quite  different. 
He  heard  some  one  extol  the  beauty  of  her  grand- 
mother, and  was  inflamed  with  passion  to  enjoy 
hers.  She  was  already  married  to  Memmius  Reg- 
ulus,  and  was  then  away  from  Rome,  in  a  foreign 
province,  with  her  husband  ;  but  Caligula  sent  orders 
to  Regulus  to  divorce  his  wife,  ordered  her  home 
and  married  her.     He  lived  with  her  about  a  year, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  105 

when  he  divorced  her  for  her  barrenness  ;  and  then 
married  his  last  wife,  Caesonia,  with  whom  he  had 
already  been  having  illicit  intercourse  for  many- 
months,  and  who  was  now  far  advanced  in  preg- 
nancy. She  was  a  woman  of  infamous  character, 
and  had  had  three  illegitimate  children  before  ;  but 
he  married  her,  and  she  was  very  soon  delivered  of 
a  daughter,  which  was  Caligula's  only  child. 

During  most  of  this  time,  since  the  death  of 
Drusilla,  he  was  living  in  incest  with  both  his  other 
sisters,  Agrippina  and  Livilla,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  would  prostitute  them  to  his  male  favorites, 
the  ministers  of  his  more  heathenish  lusts.  Sueto- 
nius says,  that,  in  addition  to  these  incests  and  adul- 
teries already  specified,  he  debauched  nearly  every 
lady  of  rank  in  Rome  ;  whom  he  was  accustomed 
to  invite,  along  with  their  husbands,  to  a  feast :  he 
would  then  examine  them,  as  they  passed  his  couch 
one  after  another,  as  one  would  examine  female 
slaves  when  about  to  purchase ;  and  after  supper 
he  would  retire  to  his  bedchamber,  and  then  send 
for  any  lady  present  that  he  liked  best. 

During  his  administration  public  prostitutes  paid 
twelve  and  a  half  per  cent   of  their  fees  into  the 


106  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

imperial  treasury ;  and  in  order  to  increase  this 
branch  of  the  revenue  he  opened  a  brothel  in  his 
own  palace,  filled  it  with  respectable  ( ?)  women, 
and  sent  out  criers  into  the  forum  to  advertise  it, 
and  invite  the  people  to  resort  to  it. 

Caligula  was  slain  by  the  officers  of  his  own 
guard,  in  the  twenty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  after 
governing  the  Roman  world  less  than  four  years. 
During  the  first  year  of  his  administration  he  had 
first  adopted  and  then  murdered  the  younger 
Tiberius  Caesar,  then  about  seventeen  years  of 
age,  who  left  no  issue  ;  and  a  few  hours  after  his 
own  death  his  wife  Csesonia  w^as  slain,  and  also 
their  infant  daughter,  who  had  its  little  brains 
dashed  out  against  a  wall :  so  the  last  of  the 
Cassars  seemed  to  have  perished.  But  there  was 
one  old  man  left,  who,  if  he  was  not  a  Caesar,  was 
certainly  related  to  all  the  C^sars,  and  it  was 
determined  to  make  him  a  Caesar,  and  raise  him 
to  the  supreme  power.  This  old  man  was  Clau- 
dius Nero. 

5.  Claudius.  —  He  was  the  uncle  of  Caligula, 
and  the  nephew  of  Tiberius.  His  naiiie  at  first 
had  been  Tiberius  Claudius  Drusus  Nero,  to  which 


OF  MABRIAGE.  107 

he  now  added  that  of  Caesar.  He  was  married  six 
times.  His  wives'  names  were,  1.  Emilia  Lepida ; 
2.  Li  via  Medullina  Camilla  ;  3.  Plautia  Urgulli- 
nilla  ;  4.  JElia  Paetina  ;  5.  Valeria  Messalina  ;  and, 
6.  Agrippina.  Of  these,  the  first,  third,  and  fourth 
were  divorced,  the  second  died,  the  fifth  was  exe- 
cuted, and  the  last  survived  him.  .^lia  Peetina, 
the  fourth,  was  divorced  soon  after  Claudius 
obtained  the  empire,  in  order  to  make  way  for 
Messalina,  whose  principal  recommendation  was 
that  she  had  already  become  pregnant  by  him. 
They  were  accordingly  married  :  the  child  was  born, 
and  was  a  boy,  whom  they  named  Britannicus. 
She  afterwards  bore  him  a  daughter  called  Octavia. 
Messalina's  lust  and  cruelty  were  so  unbounded, 
that  her  name  has  become  the  synonyme  of  every 
thing  most  vile  and  detestable  in  the  female  charac-- 
ter.  She  has  been  called  the  Roman  Jezebel ;  but 
the  comparison  is  an  injustice  to  the  Samaritan 
queen.  She  was  as  much^  more^wicked  than 
Jezebel  as  Roman  monogamy  is  more  impure  than 
Jewish  polygamy.  Her  husband's  chief  officers 
became  hei:  adulterers,  and  were  allied  with  her 
in  all  her  abominations.     She  cast  an  eye  of  lust 


108  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

on  the  principal  men  in  Rome,  and  whom  she  could 
not  seduce  to  gratify  her  vile  propensities  she 
would  contrive  to  destroy.  She  was  so  excessive 
in  her  sensuality,  that  she  often  required  the 
services  of  the  strongest  and  most  vigorous  men 
to  satisfy  her  lusts ;  and  often  for  that  reason 
chose  gladiators  and  slaves :  but  such  persons 
would  not  always  venture  to  incur  the  risk  of 
discovery,  and  then  she  would  make  her  stupid 
husband  the  unwitting  broker  of  her  adulterous 
pleasures.  As  an  example  of  this  mode  of 
procedure,  in  such  cases,  it  is  recorded  that 
"  when  Mnester,  a  celebrated  dancer,  refused  to 
yield  to  her  solicitations  or  her  threats,  she  pro- 
cured a  written  order  from  Claudius,  commanding 
him  to  do  whatever  she  should  require.  Mnester 
then  complied.  The  same  was  the  case  with  many 
others,  who  believed  they  were  obeying  the  orders 
of  the  prince  when  they  were  yielding  to  the  libidi-^ 
nous  desires  of  his  wife." 

But  she  was  not  content  with  being  infamous 
herself,  she  determined  to  make  others  so  ;  compel- 
ling many  respectable  married  women  to  prostitute 
themselves,  even  in  the  palace,  and  in  the  presence 


OF  MARRIAGE.  109 

of  their  husbands,  who  were  powerless  to  prevent 
it,  for  she  brutally  destroyed  those  who  would  not 
acquiesce  in  their  wives'  dishonor.  Meantime  her 
own  excesses  were  unknown  by  Claudius  ;  for  she 
caused  some  one  of  her  maids  to  occupy  her  place 
in  his  bed,  and  purchased  by  rewards,  or  antici- 
pated by  murder,  those  who  could  give  him  informa- 
tion. At  length  her  enormities  were  discovered 
and  brought  to  light  in  this  manner,  —  a  manner  so 
strange  and  unnatural,  that  the  grave  historian 
Tacitus  expressed  his  doubts  whether  posterity 
could  be  made  to  believe  that  any  woman  could  be 
so  wicked.  Messalina  had  set  her  heart  upon 
Caius  Silius,  the  consul  elect,  who  was  esteemed 
the  handsomest  man  in  Rome.  In  order  to  obtain 
sole  possession  of  him  she  drove  his  wife  Junia  out 
of  his  house ;  and  Silius,  knowing  that  to  refuse 
her  would  be  his  destruction,  while  by  compliance 
he  might  possibly  escape,  yielded  to  his  fate.  But 
the  infatuated  adulteress  became  so  reckless  that  she 
disdained  concealment  and  came  openly  to  visit 
him,  heaping  wealth  and  honors  upon  him,  and 
transferring  the  slaves  and  the  treasures  of  the 
prince  to  his  house.     Silius  then  saw  that  he  was 


110    -T       HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

so  deep  in  guilt  that  either  he  or  Claudius  must 
perish,  and  proposed  to  Messalina  to  murder  her 
husband  and  seize  the  supreme  power.  She  hesi- 
tated ;  not  from  regard  to  her  husband,  but  from 
the  fear  that  when  Silius  should  be  invested  with 
the  empire  he  would  cast  her  off.  She  therefore 
proposed,  as  an  amendment  to  his  plan,  that  they 
should  be  married  first,  and  then  murder  the  prince 
and  seize  the  empire  afterwards.  This  plan  was 
agreed  to  ;  and  while  Claudius  was  absent  from  the 
city  to  perform  a  sacrifice  at  Ostia,  when  he  was 
building  the  new  harbor  there,  they  were  publicly 
married,  in  due  form,  and  with  much  ceremony. 
But  their  own  attendants  were  shocked.  They  in- 
formed the  prince ;  and  the  whole  plot  was  dis- 
covered and  the  guilty  parties  put  to  death. 

Claudius  then  took  for  his  sixth  and  last  wife  his 
brother's  daughter  Agrippina  ;  and  as  such  a  union 
was  regarded  as  incestuous  by  the  laws  and  customs 
of  the  Romans,  Claudius  first  repaired  to  the  sen- 
ate-house, and  caused  a  new  law  to  be  passed  legal- 
izing marriages  between  uncles  and  nieces,  and 
then  formally  espoused  her.  Agrippina,  the  new 
imperial  consort,  was  sister  to  the  late    emperor 


OF  MARRIAGE.  Ill 

Caligula ;  and  besides  having  lived  in  incest  with 
him,  she  had  been  married  twice  before.  By  her 
first  husband,  Cneius  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  she 
had  had  a  son,  named  Lucius,  who  was  nine  years 
of  age  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  with  Claudius, 
and  three  years  older  than  his  only  son  Britannicus. 
To  promote  the  interests  of  her  own  son  Lucius, 
and  to  destroy  Britannicus,  was  now  the  ruling  pas- 
sion of  Agrippina  ;  to  gratify  which  she  paused  at 
nothing.  Yet  she  was  not,  like  Messalina,  natural- 
ly inclined  to  licentiousness  ;  but  in  order  to  win 
the  influence  and  assistance  of  powerful  men  for 
promoting  her  ambitious  designs  in  behalf  of  her 
son,  she  stooped  so  low  as  to  prostitute  herself  to 
their  lusts,  when  they  could  not  be  purchased  by 
any  other  means  at  her  command.  At  first  she 
managed  to  have  Octavia,  the  sister  of  Britannicus, 
divorced  from  Silanus,  to  whom  she  had  been  be- 
trothed, and  married  to  her  son  Lucius,  and,  in  a 
year  or  two  afterwards,  to  have  Lucius  adopted  by 
Claudius  as  his  son.  Three  years  afterwards 
she  procured  poison  from  the  notorious  Locusta, 
and  put  her  husband,  the  Emperor  Claudius,  to 
death,  in  the  sixty -fourth  year  of  his    age,  after 


112  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

he  had  governed  Rome  a  little  less  than  fourteen 
years.*  ^^^ 

6.  Nero. — Agrippina  carefully  concealed  the 
death  of  Claudius  until  secure  measures  had  been 
taken  for  setting  aside  Britannicus,  and  for  the  suc- 
cession of  her  son  ;  when  the  death  was  announced 
and  the  new  emperor  proclaimed.  Nero  was  suc- 
cessively the  grand-nephew,  the  step-son,  the  son 
in-law,  and  the  adopted  son  of  Claudius ;  and,  by 
adoption,  the  great-grandson  of  Tiberius ;  being 
son  of  Agrippina,  daughter  of  Germanicus,  adopted 
son  of  Tiberius.  He  was  also,  by  birth,  the  grand- 
nephew  of  Augustus,  by  the  collateral  female  line  ; 
his  father,  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  being  son  of 
Antonia  Major,  eldest  daughter  of  Octavia,  sister 
of  Augustus.  His  name,  at  first,  was  Lucius 
Domitius  Ahenobarbus  ;  but  upon  his  adoption  by 
Claudius,  into  the  Julian  family,  he  took  the  name 
of  Nero  Claudius  Caesar. 

Pie  was  married  seven  times.  The  names  of  his 
consorts  were,  1.  Octavia;  2.  Poppaea  Sabina ;  3. 
Octavia  again  ;  4.  Poppaea  again  ;  5.  Statilia  Mes- 

*  Suet.  Vit.  Claud. ;  Tacitus  Ann. ;  Keight. ;  Anthon. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  113 

salina ;  6.  Sporus  ;  and,  7.  Doryphorus.  It  will 
readily  be  seen,  from  this  list,  that  his  marriages 
and  divorces  were  more  numerous  than  his  brides, 
and  that  the  last  two  names  are  those  of  males. 

Nero  had  no  affection  for  his  first  wife,  the  chaste 
and  modest  Octavia,  whom  he  had  married  from 
policy,  and  not  for  love  :  and  his  mother,  the  ambi- 
tious Agrippina,  who  loved  power  so  much,  was 
pleased  with  this  indifference ;  for  she  hoped  to 
maintain  an  undivided  influence  over  him,  and 
through  him  to  rule  the  world.  But  in  the  second 
year  of  his  administration  he  conceived  a  violent 
passion  for  an  Asiatic  freedwoman  named  Acte ; 
a  passion  which  his  preceptor,  the  celebrated  phi- 
losopher Seneca,  and  his  other  councillors  of  state, 
encouraged  ;  permitting  him  to  take  her  as  his  ac- 
knowledged mistress,  without  rebuke,  hoping  that 
this  attachment  would  keep  him  from  a  life  of 
promiscuous  licentiousness  and  from  debauching 
women  of  rank.  But  Agrippina  was  furious  ;  not 
because  Acte  was  a  low-bred  woman  (though  this 
was  the  excuse  for  her  opposition) ,  but  she  felt  that 
her  own  power  would  be  diminished  by  her :  and 
she  threatened  that  if  he  did  not  give  her  up,  she 


114  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

would  herself  abandon  him,  and  would  set  up  Bri- 
tannicus ;  and,  as  the  daughter  of  the  beloved 
Germanicus,  would  appeal  to  the  army  against  her 
son,  in  Britannicus*  behalf.  This  was  a  powerful 
argument,  and  Nero  knew  that  his  mother  was 
capable  of  any  thing  to  maintain  her  power ;  but 
he  resolved,  that,  instead  of  giving  up  his  mistress, 
he  would  murder  his  innocent  brother.  He  pro- 
cured poison  from  Locusta  and  gave  it  him,  but  it 
proved  too  weak  ;  he  then  sent  for  Locusta  again, 
and  reproached  her  and  beat  her,  and  bade  her 
prepare  a  stronger  dose.  She  obeyed  him ;  and, 
having  proved  the  potency  of  the  venom  upon  a 
kid  and  a  pig,  he  had  it  given  to  Britannicus,  in 
some  cold  water,  at  diniier.  Its  effect  was  instan- 
taneous, and  the  poor  boy  dropped  down  dead. 
Nero  carelessly  remarked  to  the  company  that  he 
had  been  subject  to  fits  from  infancy,  and  would 
soon  recover.  Agrippina  and  Octavia  were  struck 
with  terror,  and  said  nothing ;  the  latter,  yonng  as 
she  was,  having  learned  to  suppress  her  feelings, 
and  the  former  perceiving  that  her  son  was  fast 
becoming  her  superior  both  in  cruelty  and  in  craft. 
Nero  next  became  enamored  of  Poppsea  Sabina, 


OF  MARBIAGE.  115 

a  lady  of  great  beauty  and  of  noble  birth,  who 
had  been  divorced  from  her  first  husband,  Cris- 
pinus,  and  was  then  married  to  her  second,  Mar- 
cus Otho  ;  but  Otho  was  sent  out  as  governor  of 
the  distant  province  of  Portugal,  and  Nero  gave 
himself  up  to  the  enjoyment  of  his  adulterous 
passion.  Then  Agrippina  became  more  furious 
than  ever,  for  she  saw,  that  if  he  should  divorce 
Octavia,  and  marry  Poppaea,  her  own  influence 
would  be  gone  forever.  But  she  set  at  work  in  a 
different  manner  than  before  ;  for  such  was  her 
insane  love  of  power,  that,  in  order  to  retain  her 
influence  over  her  son,  she  began  herself  to  pander 
to  his  vices,  diverting  and  distracting  his  mind 
with  a  succession  of  beautiful  ladies,  offering  her 
purse,  and  the  use  of  her  own  apartments  for  his 
private  assignations,  and  even  attempting  to 
seduce  him  to  unnatural  incest  with  herself;  and 
nothing  but  the  fear  of  the  army  and  of  the  peo- 
ple prevented  them  from  the  consummation  of  that 
abominable  crime.  Still  the  influence  of  Poppa3a 
increased ;  and  so  did  Agrippina's  hatred  and 
jealousy  of  her,  until  at  length  Nero  resolved 
upon  the  crime  of  matricide,  which  he  effected  in 


116  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

the  most  barbarous  manner.  He  first  attempted 
to  drown  her,  in  a  manner  that  might  appear 
accidental,  by  sending  her  to  sea  in  an  unsea- 
worthy  vessel  laden  with  lead  ;  the  deck  of  which 
was  to  give  way  at  the  proper  time,  and  the 
vessel  itself  to  fall  in  pieces.  She  went  on  board, 
and  the  deck  fell,  with  its  freight  of  lead,  as  was 
expected  ;  but  she  was  saved  by  the  devotion  of 
her  attendants.  He  then  sent  assassins  to  shed 
her  blood.  "When  they  entered  her  apartment, 
and  one  of  them  drew  his  sword,  she  exposed  her 
womb,  and  cried  out,  "  Strike  here  :  "  he  obeyed, 
and  thus  she  perished.  But  it  was  only  after  the 
lapse  of  three  years  more,  that  he  divorced  the 
virtuous  Octavia,  by  whose  alliance  he  had  ob- 
tained the  empire,  and  who  was  greatly  beloved 
by  the  people.  He  effected  her  divorce,  however, 
and  married  Poppaea ;  but  the  murmurs  of  the 
people  were  so  alarming,  that,  in  a  short  time,  he 
divorced  Poppaea,  and  married  Octavia  the  second 
time.  But  his  affections  were  still  unchanged, 
and  he  at  length  induced  Anicetus,  the  assassin 
that  had  slain  his  mother,  to  make  oath  that 
Octavia  had  committed  adultery  with  him ;  and, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  117 

although  nobody  believed  the  wretch,  this  served 
as  a  pretext  for  divorcing  her  again.  She  w^as 
then  banished  to  the  usual  place,  the  Island  of 
Pandataria,  where  she  was  soon  afterwards  put 
to  death,  at  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  her 
head  sent  as  a  present  to  Poppsea  ;  to  whom  Nero 
was  then  married  the  second  time.  Soon  after 
this  marriage,  to  his  great  joy,  she  bore  him  a 
daughter,  his  first  and  only  child,  which  lived, 
however,  but  a  few  months. 

It  was  the  next  year  after  the  birth  of  this 
infant,  that  Rome  was  burnt  [A.D.  65].  The 
loss  of  lives,  as  well  as  of  property,  was  very 
great.  The  streets  of  the  city  were  narrow  and 
crooked,  and  the  flames  spread  so  rapidly,  that 
escape  was  difficult.  The  fire  raged  six  days. 
Five-sevenths  of  the  city  was  laid  waste.  Nero 
has  often  been  charged  with  having  caused  the 
fires  himself;  but  the  charge  has  never  been  proved. 
He  was  strongly  suspected  at  the  time,  and,  in 
order  to  divert  suspicion  from  himself,  he  laid 
the  blame  upon  the  innocent  Christians.  They 
had  become  already  numerous  in  the  city,  and 
were  generally  hated   and   despised.     They  were 


118  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

put  to  death,  upon  this  suspicion,  with  torture  and 
insult ;  some  torn  to  pieces  by  dogs,  after  being 
sewed  up  in  the  skins  of  wild  animals,  some 
crucified,  and  some  wrapped  in  pitch  and  set  on 
fire,  to  serve  for  lamps  in  the  night.  Two  years 
after  the  great  fire,  Poppasa  came  to  her  death  in 
as  brutal  a  manner  as  mother,  sister,  and  brother 
had  done  before.  She  was  killed  by  Nero,  in  a 
fit  of  anger,  by  a  violent  kick  when  in  an  ad- 
vanced state  of  pregnacy. 

He  then  celebrated  his  fifth  marriage,  with  a 
lady  named  Messalina ;  with  whom  it  happened 
to  be  her  fifth  marriage  also.  Her  last  husband 
was  Atticus.  Vestinus,  whom  Nero  put  to  death 
in  order  to  obtain  possession  of  his  wife.  But  he 
soon  divorced  her,  yet  that  did  not  break  her 
heart,  for  she  outlived  him,  and  preserved  her 
beauty  to  captivate  the  fancy  of  another  emperor, 
in  future  years. 

Nero  was  married  the  sixth  time  to  a  boy. 
His  name  was  Sporus.  Nero  fancied  that  his 
beauty  resembled  that  of  his  slain  Poppsea,  whose 
death  he  repented  and  bewailed.  He  caused 
Sporus  to  be  made  a  eunuch,  and  exhausted  the 


OF  MARRIAGE.  119 

powers  of  art  in  trying  to  make  him  a  woman. 
He  then  espoused  him,  with  the  most  solemn 
forms  of  marriage ;  and  it  was  cleverly  remarked 

Cby  the  people,  that  it  was  a  great  pity  that  his 
father  Domitius  had  not  had  such  a  wife. 

His  seventh  and  last  marriage  was  to  Dorypho- 
rus,  his  own  freedman ;  but  in  this  case  Nero 
himself  was  the  bride,  and  his  manumitted  slave 
the  groom.  Nero  was  a  musician  and  a  come- 
dian, and  was  accustomed  to  spend  a  great  part 
of  his  time  in  rehearsal  and  in  public  performance, 
as  an  actor.  He  chose  the  crowded  theatre  as 
the  place  in  which  to  celebrate  this  marriage.  He 
first  covered  himself  with  the  skin  of  a  wild  beast, 
and  in  that  dress,  before  thousands  of  assembled 
men  and  women,  committed  rapes  upon  persons 
of  both  sexes,  who  were  tied  to  stakes  for  that 
purpose.  Having  thus  demonstrated  his  manhood, 
he  appeared  as  the  bride  in  his  marriage  to  Do- 
ryphorus,  to  whom  he  was  married  in  the  same 
solemn  form  that  Sporus  had  been  married  to  him  ; 
finishing  the  representation  by  consummating  the 
marriage  in  the  embraces  of  Doryphorus,  him- 
self imitating  the  cries  and  shrieks  of  young 
virgins  when  they  are  ravished. 


120  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Nero  died  by  his  own  hand,  A.D.  Q%^  in  the 
thirty-first  year  of  his  age,  and  the  fourteenth  of 
his  imperial  power.  He  left  no  child,  either  by 
birth  or  by  adoption.  He  was  the  last  of  the 
Caesars.  That  name  was  henceforth  only  an  hon- 
orary title.  Can  any  one  regret  the  extinction  of 
the  dissolute  and  degenerate  race?  Is  it  not  a/A 
happy  provision  in  the  laws  of  God,  that  "  raoU'J 
sters  cannot  propagate  "  ?  * 

Such  was  monogamy  at  the  commencement  of 
the  Christian  era ;  for  it  was  during  the  reign  of 
Augustus  that  Christ  was  born,  and  during  that 
of  Nero  that  Paul  was  beheaded.  Such  was  the 
social  system  imposed  by  Rome  upon  the  nations 
of  Europe.  This  is  no  fancy  sketch,  nor  have  the 
facts  here  cited  been  herein  exaggerated.  My 
authorities  are  accessible  to  every  scholar,  and  I 
invite  criticism  and  investigation.  The  question 
now  arises,  How  was  Roman  monogamy  affected 
by  its  contact  with  Christianity  ?  And  this  question 
I  shall  proceed  to  discuss  in  another  chapter. 

*  Sueton.  Vit.  Neronis,  par.  20-29.  ;  Tac.  Ann. ;  Keight.  Hist. 
Bom.  Emp. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  121 


CHAPTER    VI. 

HOW  WAS  ROMAN  MONOGAMY  AFFECTED   BY 
THE  INTRODUCTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY? 

The  introduction  of  Christianity  effected  no 
violent  revolutions  of  any  kind  in  the  social  rela- 
tions of  men  and  women,  except  by  purifying 
these  relations,  and  enforcing  the  duties  dependent 
upon  them.  Christianity  did  not  dictate  any  par- 
ticular form  of  government,  or  any  code  of  laws, 
but  enjoined  obedience  to  the  existing  laws,  when 
they  were  not  inconsistent  with  the  laws  of  the 
gospel.  The  first  Christians,  while  they  were 
themselves  scarcely  tolerated,  were  not  inclined  to 
attempt  a  social  revolution  by  Apposing  the  estab- 

/    lished   system  of  monogamy  ;  but  they  attempted  ^^ 
to  oppose   only   its  vices,  and    to    remove    them.   X 
They   insisted,   from   the   first,   upon    purity    and 
chastity  in    men    and  women    equally.     They  de- 

^  nounced  prostitution,   adultery,  and    frequent    smd  y? 


122  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

i  capricious  divorces,  and  did  what  they  could  to 
eradicate  their  practice.  But  before  they  attained 
any  degree  of  civil  or  religious  freedom,  or  were 
in  any  situation  to   introduce  the  purer  system  of 

/polygamy,  they  had  themselves  become  thoroughly  v 
Romanized ;  and  the  errors  of  Gnosticism,  Plato-/ 
nism,  and  Montanism  had  then  prevailed  so  exten- 
sively as  to  impel  them,  at  last,  to  attempt  a  social 
reformation  in  a  direction  quite  contrary  to  po- 
lygamy, by  discouraging  marriage,  and  by  introdu- 
cing asceticism,  monasticism,  and  celibacy.  ^ 

GNOSTICISM   IN   THE   FIRST   CENTURY. 

Christianity  was  not  fully  tolerated  in   Europe 

V      till   the   time    of    the    Emperor    Constantine    they 

*;v  ,„^Great,  in  the   former  part  of  the   fourth  century; 

yv     and  was  not  established  by  law  as  the  religion  of 

■^      Rome,  till  the  reign  of   Theodosius,  in  the  very 

^  ^      last  part  of  that  century  ;  while  Gnosticism  and  its 

.  V        cognate  errors  began  to  be  disseminated  even  in  the 

'  ^  ^      first    century,    in    apostolic   times :  they  prevailed 

k\  extensively  in  the  second  century,  and  had  perma- 

\  nently   corrupted   the    church    in    the    third    and 

fourth.     While  the  different  Gnostic  writers  and 


OF  MARRIAGE.  123 

teachers  differed  greatly  from  one  another  on 
many  points  of  belief,  they  were  generally  agreed 
in  their  fundamental  doctrines,  which  sprung  from 
the  ancient  Persian  or  Magian  system  of  religion, 
and  which  taught  the  existence  of  two  eternal 
^-^  beings,  —  Ornaiiad,  or  God,  the  author  of  good,  and 
the  creator  of  light,  which  is  his  emblem  ;  and 
Ahriman,  or  the  Devil,  the  author  of  evil,  and 
the  creator  of  darkness,  his  emblem.  They 
believed  that  the  world  consisted  of  spirit  and 
of  matter,  both  being  eternal ;  the  latter,  essen- 
tially evil,  formed  or  moulded  by  the  Devil 
from  the  eternal  substance  of  chaos,  and  the 
former,  essentially  good,  proceeding  out  of  God, 
and  still  forming  a  part  of  God :  hence,  that  the 
body  is  vile,  wicked,  and  dark ;  while  the  soul  is 
pure,  holy,  and  light.  The  body,  therefore,  with 
its  appetites  and  passions,  should  be  despised  and 
subdued ;  while  the  soul,  with  its  superior  attri- 
butes, should  be  cherished  and  obeyed.  The 
principal  Gnostic  teachers  of  the  first  century 
were  Simon  Magus,  Menander,  and  Cerinthus. 
They  all  studied  at  Alexandria,  and  all  became 
Christians.     Cerinthus  tausht  that  the  man  Jesus 


124  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

was  born  of  Joseph  and  Mary  in  the  natural  way ; 
that  the  siav,  Christ,  descended  on  him  at  his  bap- 
tism, in  the  form  of  a  dove  ;  and,  previous  to  the 
crucifixion,  that  the  eio)v  returned  to  God,  leaving 
the  man  to  suffer  on  the  cross. 

GNOSTICISM   AND   PLATONISM    OF    THE    SECOND 
CENTUEY. 

In  the  second  century,  the '  Gnostic  Christians 
became'  much  more  numerous  and  influential. 
Among  the  writers  and  teachers  whom  historians 
particularly  mention  were  Saturninus,  Basilides,^ 
Carpocrates,  Valentine,  Bardesanes,  Tatian,  Mar- 
cion,  Montanus,  Tertullian,  and  Origen.  Saturninus 
(A.D.  115)  taught  that  Satan,  the  ruler  of  mat- 
ter, was  coeval  with  the  Deity  ;  that  the  world  was 
created  by  seven  angels,  without  the  knowledge 
of  the  Deity,  who,  however,  was  not  displeased 
when  he  saw  it,  and  breathed  into  man  a  rational 
soul.  Satan,  enraged  at  the  creation  of  the  world 
and  the  virtue  of  its  inhabitants,  formed  another 
race  of  men  out  of  matter,  with  malignant  souls 
like  his  own ;  and  hence  arose  the  great  moral 
difference  to  be  observed  among  men.     The  moral 


OF  MARRIAGE.  125 

discipline  of  Saturninus  was  ascetic  and  severe : 
he  discouraged  marriage,  declaring  it  to  be  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Devil ;  *  he  enjoined  abstinence  from 
wine  and  flesh,  and  taught  to  keep  under  the  body, 
as  being  formed  from  matter,  which  is  in  its 
essence  evil  and  corrupt.  Bardesanes  wrote  about 
A.D.  170,  in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Marcus 
Aurelius.  "  His  moral  system  was  ascetic  in  the 
extreme ;  he  enjoined  his  disciples  to  renounce 
wedlock,  abstain  from  animal  food,  and  live  in 
solitude  on  the  slightest  and  most  meagre  diet,  and 
even  to  use  water  instead  of  wine  in  the  Lord's 
Supper."  t  Montanus  (A.D.  175)  insisted  upon 
more  frequent  and  more  rigorous  fasts  than  had 
yet  prevailed  in  the  church,  for  they  had  hitherto 
fasted  only  during  the  passion-week ;  he  forbade 
second  marriages  ;  taught  the  absolute  and  irrevo- 
cable excommunication  of  adulterers,  murderers, 
and  idolaters  ;  required  all  chaste  women  to  wear 
veils ;  and  forbade  all  kinds  of  costly  attire  and 
ornaments  of  the  person.  His  most  distinguished 
disciple    was   Tertullian,   bishop    of    Carthage,    a 

*  Mosheim,  Ecc.  Hist.,  vol.  1,  p.  246. 

t  Keightley's  Hist.  Eom.  Emp.,  part  2,  chap.  7. 


V 


126  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

very  learned  and  voluminous  w^riter,  whose  works 
have  been  held  in  the  greatest  estimation  in  every 
age.  Origen,  a  still  more  learned  and  more  vo- 
luminous writer,  and  a  very  eloquent  preacher, 
embraced  the  Gnostic  errors  when  a  young  man, 
and  carried  his  principles  of  subduing  the  passions 
of  the  body  to  such  an  extent,  that  he  made  a 
eunuch  of  himself:  but  in  after-life,  when  he  had 
spent  many  years  in  studying,  translating,  and  ex- 
pounding the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  understood 
them  better,  he  regretted  the  rash  act  of  his  youth, 
and  greatly  modified  his  Gnostic  sentiments  ;  so 
much  so,  that  many  have  accused  him  of  teaching 
different  views  of  the  same  subject,  and  of  con- 
tradicting himself. 

The  first  Platonic  philosopher  wlio  joined  the 
Christians  was  Justin  Martyr,  who  was  beheaded 
at  Rome  A.D.  155  ;  followed  by  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, A.D.  192,  who  had  a  school  in  that  city 
called  the  Catechetic  School,  which  attempted  to'N 
harmonize  tlie  philosophy  of  Plato  with  the  mate- 
rialism of  the  Gnostics  by  means  of  the  common 
medium  of  Christianity.  This  scheme  was  called 
the  New  Platonism ;  and  a  long  contest  prevailed 


V 


OF  MARRIAGE. 


12t 


\ 


\ 


between  the  followers  of  this  system  and  the  advo- 
cates for  gospel  simplicity.  But  the  victory  ap- 
peared to  be  on  the  side  of  the  Platonists,  which 
assured  the  lasting  corruption  of  Christianity  ;  for 
learned  Christians  now  began  to  maintain  that  the 
Scriptures  have  a  double  meaning ;  one  literal  and 
/'plain,  and  the  other  latent  and  symbolic  :  the  literal 
i  or  exoteric  sense  to  be  taught  to  the  people,  and 
the  latent  or  esoteric  sense  to  be  communicated 
only  to  the  initiated  and  the  faithful.  A  similar 
distinction  in  morals  followed.  There  was  one 
rule  for  the  multitude,  and  another  for  the  aspirants 
to  higher  sanctity.  These  were  to  seek  retirement 
and  to  mortify  the  flesh,  avoiding  marriage  and  all 
indulgence  of  the  senses.  Hence  originated  the 
austerities  of  religious  hermits  ;  hence  the  celibacy 
of  priests,  monks,  and  nuns. 

RELATION   OF   MONOGAMY  TO   CHRISTIANITY  IN   THE 
THIRD    AND    FOURTH   CENTURIES. 

At  the  council  of  Cassarea,  A.D.  314,  it  was  de- 
cided and  decreed,  in  the  first  canon,  that,  if  a 
priest  should  marry  after  his  ordination,  he  must 
be  deposed   from  office.     The  seventh   canon  for- 


/ 


128  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

bids  a  priest  to  be  present  at  the  marriage  of  a 
bigamist. 

At  the  council  of  Ancyra,  in  the  same  year,  it 
was  ordered,  in  the  tenth  canon,  that  those  deacons 
who  expressed  their  intention  to  marry  at  the  time 
of  their  ordination  might  innocently  do  so  ;  but,  if 
they  should  marry  without  having  expressed  such 
intention,  they  must  be  deposed  from  office. 

At  the  first  council  of  Carthage,  A.D.  348, 
by  the  second  canon,  it  was  ordered  that  all  Chris- 
tians who  had  violated  their  vows  of  virginity  by 
subsequent  marriage  should  be  excommunicated ; 
and,  if  they  were  priests,  they  should  be  deposed 
from  office. 

Siricius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  in  385  ordered  that 
every  priest  and  every  deacon  within  his  diocese 
who  should  marry  a  second  wife,  or  a  widow, 
should  be  deposed  from  office. 

While  these  Gnostic  and  Platonic  sentiments 
w^ere  at  work  corrupting  the  church  within,  the 
state  of  social  life  without  the  pale  of  Christianity 
was  much  the  same  as  it  has  been  described  under 
the  first  six  Caesars  ;  or,  if  the  testimony  of  all  the 
contemporary  writers  can  be  believed,  it  was  be- 


OF  MARRIAGE.  129 


coming  more  and  more  corrupt.  The  Christians 
formed  but  a  small  minority  of  the  whole  popul 
tion,  and  they  were  generally  hated,  and  often  per- 
secuted. It  is  scarcely  possible  for  us  to  conceive 
of  any  greater  depravity  than  that  of  the  age  of 
Caligula  and  Nero  ;  and  we  do  not  wonder  to  learn 
that  in  the  succeeding  century  the  once  mighty 
Roman  empire  was  beginning  to  totter  to  its  fall. 
But  before  it  fell  it  was  destined  to  be  upheld  a 
while  by  the  fortitude  of  Christian  patriots  ;  and,  in 
turn,  the  purity  of  Christianity  was  to  become  more 
Fand  more  sullied  by  its  long  contact  with  Roman 
depravity,  and  its  intimate  complicity  with  Roman 
monogamy. 

CONSTANTINE    AND    THEODOSIUS. 

In  the  former  part  of  the  fourth  century,  the  two 
joint  emperors  were  Constantine  and  Licinius. 
They  agreed,  at  first,  to  tolerate  Christianity ;  but 
Licinius  violated  his  agreement,  and  commenced  a 
persecution.  Then  Constantine,  who  had  himself 
been  a  pagan  hitherto,  resolved  to  favor  the  Chris- 
tians more  than  he  had  done  already,  and  thus 
attach  to  himself  th»  most  industrious  and  peace- 
able citizens,  and  the  most  brave  and  loyal  soldiers 
9  ■"^^''      ' ' 


ns    ^ 
a-  7 


130  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  empire.  In  the  year  A.D.  324  the  cross  ap- 
peared for  the  first  time  upon  his  banners ;  his 
rival  was  defeated,  and  he  became  sole  emperor. 
Then  Constantino  issued  circular  letters,  announ- 
cing his  conversion  to  Christianity,  and  inviting  the 
people  to  follow  his  example.  This  call  of  the  pow-"^ 
erful  monarch  was  not  unheeded.  The  Christian  ^ 
faith  spread  rapidly  :  ministers  of  religion  thronged 
the  royal  court,  and  offices  of  honor  and  profit  were 
conferred  upon  Christians.     Yet  Constantino  him- 

"^  self,  through  all  his  subsequent  life,  was  only  a 
catechumen  or  inquirer,  and  was  not  baptized,  and 
received  into  full  membership  in  the  church,  until 

...-""^e  was  near  his  end.  And,  in  the  mean  time,  he 
left  the  ancient  system  of  the  Roman  state  undis- 
turbed ;  and  paganism,  with  its  corrupt  monogamy. 
Vjvas  still  the  law  of  the  land.  At  length  Theodo-\ 
sius,  his  grandson,  required  the  Senate,  a  majority 
of  whom  had  hitherto  remained  pagans,  to  choose 
between  the  two  religions ;  and  they  were  finally 
induced  to  vote  in  accordance  with  his  wishes,  in  / 
favor  of  Christianity.  He  soon  (A.D.  392)  pub- 
lished a  severe  edict  against  paganism ;  and  "  thei 
pretended  conversions  became  numerous,  the  tem- 


lU  / 


c 


OF  MARRIAGE.  131 

pies  were  deserted,  and  the  churches  filled  with 
worshippers,  and  the  religion  under  which  Rome 
flourished  for  twelve  centuries  ceased  forever."  * 

ASCETICISM   AND   MONASTICISM. 

And  then  at  length,  when  Christianity  became 
paramount  in  the  State,  a  permanent  and  decided 
social  reform  might  have  been  possible,  had  they 
tolerated  polygamy,  as  the  first  Christians  had  done    J 
in   Judaea   and  other  Asiatic  countries  ;    for  they 
would  thus  have  made  it  possible  for  all  to  be  mar- 
ried that  wished  to  marry,  and  thus  have  guarded 
themselves  from  the  terrible  licentiousness  of  the 
pagans,  by  the  influences  of  which  they  were  sur- 
rounded on  every  hand.     But,  on  the  contrary,  im-^ 
pelled  by  the  prevailing  influences  of  Gnosticism,  \'''*^ 
they  not  only  retained  their  former  monogamy,  but 
they  made  it  more  strict  and  ascetic  than  before,  and  j 
attempted  an  impossible  reform  by  suppressing  the 
amorous   propensities,  and  vainly  endeavoring   to 
eradicate  them.     The  bishops  and  doctors  of  the 
church  had  already  done  what  they  could   to  dis- 
courage marriage,  and  bring  it  into  disrepute,  es- 

*  Keightley,  Rom.  Emp.,  part  3,  chap.  6. 


132  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

pecially  with  the  ministers  of  religion  ;  but  now 
Ihey  forbade  it  to  them  altogether. 
^^  At  the  council  of  Toledo,  in  A.D.  400,  it  was 
ordered,  by  canon  seventeenth,  that  every  Christian 
that  had  both  a  wife  and  a  concubine  should  be 
excommunicated  ;  but  he  should  not  be  excommu- 
/^  nicated  who  had  only  a  concubine  without  a  wife. 

At  the  fourth  council  of  Carthage,  A.D.  401,  it 
was  ordered,  by  canon  seventieth,  that  all  bishops, 
priests,  and  deacons,  who  had  wives,  must  repudiate 
them,  and  live  in  celibacy,  under  penalty  of  deposi- 
tion from  office. 

Pope  Innocent  I.,  about  A.D.  412,  in  his  official 
letter  to  the  two  bishops  of  Abruzzo,  orders  them 
to  depose  those  priests  who  had  been  guilty  of  the 
crime  of  having  children  since  their  ordination,    -s"— 

Thus  the  seeds  of  Gnostic  error,  that  had  been 

sown  in  the  church  during  the  former  periods  of  its 

history,  now  sprang  up  anew,  and  bore  a  plentiful^ 

<^ harvest.      "Nothing,"  says  Keightley,   "is  more 

characteristic  of  the  corruption  which  Christianity 

rhad  undergone  than  the  high  honor  in  which  the 
various  classes  of  ascetics  were  held.  These  use- 
less  or  pernicious   beings  now  actually  swarmed 


OF  MARRIAGE.  133 

throughout  the  Eastern  empire,  and  were  grad- 
ually spreading  themselves  into  the  West.  We 
have  shown  how  asceticism  has  been  derived  from 
the  sultry  regions  of  Asia,  and  how  it  originates 
in  the  Gnostic  principles.  It  had  long  been  insinu- 
ating itself  into  the  church  ;  but,  after  the  establish- 
ment of  Christianity,  it  burst  forth  like  a  torrent." 
"  The  hope  of  acquiring  heaven  by  virginity  and 
mortification  was  not  confined  to  the  male  sex : 
woman,  with  the  enthusiasm  and  the  devotional 
tendency  peculiar  to  her,  rushed  eagerly  towards 
the  crown  of  glory.  Nunneries  became  numerous, 
and  were  thronged  with  inmates.  Nature,  how- 
ever, not  unfrequently  asserted  her  rights  ;  and  the 
complaints  and  admonitions  of  the  most  celebrated 
fathers  assure  us  that  the  unnatural  state  of  vowed 
celibacy  was  productive  of  the  same  evils  and  scan- 
dals in  ancient  as  in  modern  times."  *  j 

MEDIEVAL    SUPEESTITION    AND    IMMORALITY. 

"  And  then,"  says  the  learned  ecclesiastical  his- 
torian, Mosheim,  "  the  number  of  immoral  and  un- 

*  Hist.  Eom.  Emp.,  chap.  6. 


134  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

worthy  Christians  began   so  to   increase,  that  the 
examples    of  real    piety  and   virtue   became    ex- 
tremely rare.     When   the   terrors    of  persecution 
were  totally  dispelled ;  when  the   church,  secured 
from  the  efforts  of  its  enemies,  enjoyed  the  sweets 
of  prosperity  and  peace  ;  when  the  major  part  of 
its  bisliops  exhibited  to  their  flocks  the  contagious 
examples  of  arrogance,  luxury,   effeminacy,   ani- 
mosity, and  strife,  with  other  vices  too  numerous  to 
mention ;    when   multitudes  were   drawn  into  the\ 
/profession  of  Christianity,  not  by  the  power  of  con- 
/      victidn  and  argument,  but  by  the  prospect  of  gain 
I       or  by  the  fear  of  punishment,  —  then  it  was  indeed 
\      no  wonder  that  the  church  was  contaminated  with 
\    shoals  of  profligate   Christians,  and   that  the  vir- 
tuous few  were,  in  a  manner,  oppressed  and  over- 
whelmed   by  the  superior  numbers  of  the  wicked 
V^and  licentious."     "  Nor  did  the  evil  end  here  ;  for 
those  vain  fictions,  which   an   attachment  to    the 
Platonic  philosophy  and  to  popular  opinions  had 
engaged  the  greatest  part  of  the  Christian  doctors 
to  adopt  before  the  time  of  Constantine,  were  now 
confirmed,   enlarged,  and    embellished    in   various 
ways.      Hence    arose    the    extravagant  veneration 


OF  MARRIAGE.  135 

for  departed  saints,  the  celibacy  of  priests,  the 
worship  of  images  and  relics,  which,  in  process  of 
time,  almost  totally  destroyed  the  Christian  religion, 

(or  at  least  eclipsed  its  lustre,  and  corrupted  its  es- 
sence."    "  A  preposterous  desire  of  imitating  the  \ 
pagan  rites,  and  of  blending  them  with  the  Chris- 
tian worship,  and  that  idle  propensity  which  the      i 
generality  of  mankind  have  towards  a  gaudy  and      . 
ostentatious  religion,  all  combined  to  establish  the     / 
reign  of  superstition  on  the  ruins  of  Christianity.  / 
Accordingly,  frequent  pilgrimages  were  undertaken 
to  Palestine  and  to  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs,  as  if 
there  alone  the  sacred  principles  of  virtue  and  the 
certain  hope  of  salvation  were  to  be  acquired.    The\ 
public  processions  and  supplications,  by  which  the 
pagans   endeavored   to    appease   their   gods,  were 
now  adopted  into  the  Christian  worship,  and  cele- 
brated with  great  pomp  and  magnificence.     The 
Virtues   that   had   formerly  been    ascribed   to    the 
heathen  temples,  to  their  lustrations,  to  the  statues 
\    of  their  gods  and  heroes,  were  now  attributed   to 
\  the  Christian   churches,  to  water  consecrated   by 
/  certain  forms  of  prayer,  to  the  images  of  holy  men  ;    ^3 
I     and  the  worship  of  the  martyrs  was  modelled  ac- 


136  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

cording  to  the  religious  services  that  were  paid  to 
the  gods  before  the  coming  of  Christ."  * 

Similar  testimonies  could  easily  be  cited  from 
Gibbon's  "  Decline^  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire," from  D'Aubign^'s  "  History  of  the  Reforma- 
tion," from  the  ancient  works  of  Eusebius,  and  the 
modern  ones  of  Neander,  and  from  hundreds  of 
others  ;  but  I  will  not  weary  my  readers  with  them. 
Thus  it  appears  from  the  testimonies  of  all  the  his- 
torians, ecclesiastical  and  civil,  sacred  and  profane, 
that  the  doctrines  and  practices  which  distinguish 
the  Roman-Catholic  Church  to-day  were  most  of 
them  derived  from  a  very  early  age,  anterior  to  the 
civil  acknowledgment  and  legal  establishment  of 
/^Christianity.     Keightley  says,    *'  The  Church   of  \ 

/      Rome  is,  in  fact,  very  unjustly  treated  when  she  is    ] 
charged  with  being  the  author  of  the  tenets  and 
practices  which  were  transmitted  to  her  from  the 
fourth  century.    Her  guilt  or  error  was  not  that  of  / 

\    invention,  but  of  retention.^^ 

IMMUTABILITY   OF    THE   ROMAN   CHURCH. 

Her  boasted  claim  of  immutability  is  well  sus- 
tained, as  far  back,  certainly,  as  the   commence- 

*  Mosheirn,  Ecc.  Hist.  Cent.  4,  part  2,  chap.  3, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  137 

ment  of  the  fifth  century.  The  Western  empire 
survived  till  the  close  of  that  century ;  and  as  the 
power  of  the  emperors  continued  to  decline,  that  of 
the  bishops  of  Rome,  who  were  afterwards  called 
popes,  continued  to  increase,  till  at  length  they  at- 
tained monarchical  as  well  as  hierarchical  powery/ 
and  governed  the  religious  and  the  social  affairs  of 
the  European  world.  And  as  the  dogmas  of  the 
Roman  Church  are  now  maintaining  monogamy 
with  many  of  its  attendant  vices,  and  are  now  pro- 
hibiting marriage  to  its  clergy,  and  discouraging  it 
in  all  its  more  earnest  religious  devotees,  of  both 
sexes,  so  they  always  have  done.  And  we  have  the 
testimonies  of  all  modern  historians,  all  modern 
travellers,  and  of  modern  statistics,  that  the  vices 
of  old  Rome  that  then  attended  its  social  system  of 
monogamy  are  still  the  vices  of  modern  Rome,  and 
of  all  the  countries  under  the  sway  of  the  Roman 
Church  ;  the  most  recent  statistics  of  the  Catholic^ 
countries  of  Europe  giving  the  number  of  illegiti- 
mate children  born  there  each  year,  as  greater 
Jhan  the  number  of  those  of  legitimate  birth.  Andv' 
it  is  not  only  on  the  corrupt  soil  of  old  Europe  that 
the   licentiousness    of  ancient    Roman   monogamy 


138  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Still  prevails,  but  also  in  the  Catholic  countries  of 
new  America.  In  proof  of  this  I  will  cite  only- 
one  testimony,  where  thousands  might  be  cited, 
from  a  recent  work  entitled  "  What  I  saw  in  South 
and  North  America."  By  H.  W.  Baxley,  M.D., 
Special  Commissioner  of  the  United-States  Gov-  / 
ernment.  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York,  1865.  *^ 
This  is  his  description  of  "  what  he  saw  "  in  Lima, 
the  capital  of  Peru  :  — 

"It  is  rarely  the  case  that  one  walks  in  any 
part  of  the  city,  during  the  day  or  night,  without  Y 
being  shocked  by  sights  of  indecency,  immodesty,  \^ 
and  immorality,  too  gross  even  to  be  hinted  at, 
and  disgraceful  to  the  arrogant  civilization  of  the 
nation.  If  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  ninety- 
three  priests,  exercising  ecclesiastical  authority 
and  performing  religious  functions  in  this  city,  as 
published  in  its  statistics,  with  seventy  churches, 
forty-two  chapels,  six  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
altars,  and  vast  power  of  influence  and  enforce-^^  *5 
ment,  cannot  produce  a  better  state  of  morals  and  ^^  ^ 
manners,  it  shows  either  a  defective  system  of  re--^fi^ 
ligion,  or  incapacity  and  faithlessness  on  the  part  |  ^ 
of  the  executors  of  the  holy  trust.  Tlie  statements  /  ^ 
of  candid  citizens  and  of  foreign  residents  of  many  ^  1 
years  compel  the  belief,  that  the  general  demoraliza-       ^ 


OF  MARRIAGE.  139 

tion  is  mainly  due  to  a  depraved  clergy.  If  priests 
taking  vows  of  chastity  and  devotion  alone  to  God, 
perjure  themselves,  obey  the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  and 
scatter  their  illegitimate  offspring  abroad,  it  is  to 
be  expected  that  they  will  find  imitators  among 
those  whose  temporal  purity  they  should  guard, 
and  whose  eternal  welfare  they  should  promote. 
The  unblushing  boldness  with  which  clerical  de- 
bauchery stalks  abroad  in  Lima  renders  it  needless 
to  put  in  any  saving  clause  of  declaration.  The 
priest  may  be  seen  on  the  sabbath  day,  as  on  others, 
in  bull-ring  and  cock-pit,  restaurant  and  tavern,  with 
commoner  and  concubine,  joining  in  noisy  revel,  or 
looking  on  with  complacent  sanction.  Nor  does 
the  going-down  of  the  sun  arrest  his  wayward  per- 
egrinations ;  for  he  may  be  seen  at  that  hour,  at 
corners,  with  tapadas^  in  gay  and  lascivious  con- 
versation, or  threading  by-ways  in  fulfilment  of  a 
lustful  assignation.  If  the  bishop  of  Arequipas 
will  turn  to  the  '  weak  and  beggarly  elements  of 
the  world,'  if  he  cannot,  like  his  great  predecessor 
St.  Paul,  '  contain,'  but  must  obey  the  carnal  de- 
sires, '  let  him  marry,'  as  he  is  commanded  by  the 
apostle,  like  an  honorable  man  and  a  consistent 
Christian ;  and  let  him  not  encourage  the  frailty 
of  depraved  disciples  by  a  shameless  example  of 
licentiousness  made  public  by  his  procurement  of 
separate  apartments  in  Lima  for  his  seven  concu- 
bines and  his  thirty-five  illegitimate  children. 


140  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

"  The  streets  of  this  capital  were  yesterday  the 
scene  of  a  procession  which  was  a  disgrace  to  its 
professed  enlightenment,  and  an  idolatrous  vio- 
lation of  its  boasted  Christianity.  A  gorgeously- 
gilded  throne,  borne  on  the  shoulders  of  negroes, 
who  were  partially  concealed  by  a  deep  valance, 
supported  the  pontifically-attired  effigy  of  St. 
Peter  ;  its  right  arm,  moved  by  secret  machinery, 
being  occasionally  raised  in  attitude  of  blessing 
the  throngs  of  deluded  worshippers  who  bowed 
their  heads  for  its  benediction.  Another  similarly 
decorated  dais  bore  a  life-size  graven  image  of 
La  Merced,  the  patron  saint  of  Peru ;  elegantly 
arrayed  in  curls,  coronet,  richly-embroidered 
crinoline  and  robe,  pearl  necklace  and  ear-rings, 
brooch  and  bodice ;  and  holding  in  its  uplifted 
jewelled  fingers  a  silver  yoke.  These  effigies 
were  escorted  by  prelates  and  other  ecclesiastics ; 
and  that  of  La  Merced  was  preceded  by  six  pert- 
looking  mulatto  girls,  —  designed  to  represent 
virgins,  —  carrying  incense  upon  silver  salvers, 
from  which  numerous  censers,  swung  by  priestly 
hands,  were  kept  supplied,  and  rolled  upward 
their  clouds  of  perfume,  to  tell  of  the  adoration 
of  her  votaries.  The  whole  procession  moved  to 
the  sound  of  measured  chants  sung  by  hundreds 
of  the  clergy,  who  often  bowed  ;  behind  whom 
followed  the  civic  di<j:nitaries  of  the  nation    and 


OF  MARRIAGE.  141 

city,  bareheaded  and  reverential ;  and  after  these 
came  the  plumed  warriors,  on  horse  and  foot, 
with  breastplate  and  helmet,  lance,  sabre,  musket, 
and  cannon,  flaunting  banners,  and  martial  music, 
guarding  the  saints  through  the  city,  and  back  to 
the  altars  of  the  Church  of  La  Merced,  whence 
they  came,  and  where  they  will  receive  hereafter, 
as  heretofore,  the  petitions  and  vows  of  thousands 
of  misguided  religionists.  Can  popular  regenera- 
tion be  rationally  looked  for  when  examples  of 
ecclesiastical  profligacy  are  patent  to  the  public 
eye,  and  when  such  violations  of  divine  precepts 
are  practised,  and  such  delusions  devised  to  mis- 
lead the  ignorant? 

"  No  one  can  scrutinize  the  social  habits  in 
Lima,  without  becoming  sensible  of  the  fact  that 
women  are  probably  '  more  sinned  against  than 
sinning/  For  they  not  only  have  provocations  to 
faithlessness,  and  opportunity  afforded  for  its  in- 
dulgence by  sanctioned  customs,  but  they  are 
taught  by  the  universally-recognized  dissoluteness 
of  the  men  not  to  place  any  confidence  in  them, 
and  not  to  contemplate  marriage  as  a  means  of 
happiness  beyond  its  power  to  furnish  an  estab- 
lishment, and  make  a  woman  mistress  of  her 
own  actions. 

"In' the  street  called  San  Francisco,  opposite 
the   monastery  of  that   name,  a  kind  of  barracks 


142  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

is  found,  containing  quite  a  population  apart  from 
the  rest.  There  lives  a  class  of  women  and  chil- 
dren whom  one  would  think  came  in  a  direct  line 
from  the  gypsies,  if  their  complexion  did  not  show 
a  variety  of  a  thousand  shades,  from  white  to 
black.  These  women  are  the  acknowledged 
mistresses,  and  the  children  the  progeny,  of  the 
monks,  who  visit  them  at  all  times,  and  pay  them 
a  regular  stipend.  'La  casa  de  la  monjas,'  — the 
house  of  the  nuns,  —  as  the  people  ironically  call 
it,  is  a  real  Goniorrah.  The  clerical  protectors  of 
the  tenants  that  inhabit  it  willingly  mistake  the 
chambers,  not  having  the  weakness  of  the  laity 
of  being  jealous  of  each  other.  Do  not  suppose 
that  we  are  amusing  ourselves  in  speaking  ill  of  the 
monks  of  Lima.  These  abominations  among  them- 
selves they  are  the  first  to  expose  ;  for  in  their 
stated  elections  for  superiors,  such  is  the  bitterness 
of  rival  aspirants,  that  they  publicly  charge  against 
each  other  these  infamous  transactions,  making 
known  the  number  of  their  concubines  and  illegiti- 
mate children." 

Thus  have  Dr.  Baxley  and  others  cast  the 
principal  reproach  of  this  frightful  immorality 
upon  the  poor  priests ;  but  does  it  not  belong 
rather  to  their  entire  social  system?     The  priests 


i 


OF  MARRIAGE.  143 


4 

in  assuming  the  vows  of  perpetual  celibacy,  and 
the  people  in  supporting  the  old  Roman  monog- 
amy, which  their  Gnostic  views  of  Christianity 
require,  have  assumed  more  than  human  nature 
is  able  to  bear,  and  more  than  it  ought  to  bear ; 
and  there  must  be  constant  transgression  and  v^ 
immorality  as  long  as  their  present  system  pre-  ^^ 
vails. 

And  now  I  think  I  have  fairly  demonstrated 
that  the  European  social  system  of  monogamy 
had  its  origin  in  Roman  paganism,  and  has  been 
perpetuated  by  Roman  Catholicism. 


144  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  VII. 

MONOGAMY  AS  IT  IS  AMONG   PROTESTANTS. 
MONOGAMY  IS   ROMANISM   STILL. 

Take  monogamy  as  it  is  to-day,  in  Protestant 
countries,  and  we  see  that  the  old  Roman  leaven 
is  still  in  it.  Christianity  has  not  reformed  and 
purified  that  system  so  much  as  that  has  corrupted 
Christianity.  Most  of  us  in  these  countries  are 
accustomed  to  congratulate  ourselves  upon  our 
happy  escape  from  the  bondage  and  the  bigotry 
of  the  Papal  Church.  But  we  are  mistaken.x 
We  have  not  escaped.  Rome  binds  us  in  stronger 
shackles  than  the  iron  chains  of  the  holy  Inquisi-  ) 
tion.  Her  shackles  are  upon  our  consciences :  they 
are  intertwined  with  every  fibre  of  our  social  life. 
Much  of  her  intolerant  spirit,  many  of  her  ques-  / 
tionable  doctrines  and  practices,  and  her  tradi- 
tional forms  and  ceremonies,  are  still  common  to 
the  nominally  Christian  world.     In  respect  to   a 


OF  MARRIAGE.  145 

few  of   them,  we  have   discovered  that  they  are 
unscriptural,  and  unsupported  by  divine  authority, 
and  are  therefore  of  no  binding  obligation  ;  but,  by 
many  other  traditional  doctrines  and  practices  of 
that  hierarchy,  we  are  unconsciously,  and   there- 
fore  so   much   the   more    securely   fettered.     We 
boast  of   our  Christian  freedom,  while  we  are,  in 
fact,  but  little  better  than   slaves ;  for  if  we  are  >. 
nomially  free,  yet  we  are  bound  by  an  apprentice-  / 
ship   to  Rome   more   degrading  than   our  former 
slavery  itself:    and   our   boasted   emancipation    is 
but  a  miserable  farce.     We  are   too   servile   and 
timid  in  our  interpretation  of   the  Bible,  and   in     I 
our  examination  of  the  divine  and  natural   laws.   / 
We  hesitate  to  follow  the  simple  truth  to  its  legiti- 
mate and  logical  conclusions.     We  stand  aghast 
at  the  radical  changes  which  severe  truth  requires 
in  our  religious  and  social  systems.     We  shrink 
from  exploring  the  profound  labyrinths  to  which 
truth  attempts  in  vain  to  lead  us ;  while  we  look 
anxiously  around  for  clews  and  leading-strings  by 
which  to  trace  our  way.      We   dare  not  go  for-"^ 
ward  without   example   and    authority ;    and   au-       j 
thority  and  example  are  reconducting  us  to  Rome.      / 


146^    =  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


K 


»i 


/  Our  great  champion,  Dr.  Martin  Luther,  made  a 
,_.  few  bold  steps  in  the  right  direction,  but  stopped 
far  short  of  the  ultimate  results  to  which  his  own 
principles  were  leading^  A  Protestant  in  theory, 
he  was,  in  practice,  essentially  a  Romanist.  He 
insisted  much  upon  justification  by  faith  alone, 
and  declared  personal  piety  to  be  necessary  to 
true  Christianity  ;  and  yet  he  admitted  all  citizens, 
irrespective  of  their  faith  or  their  want  of  it,  to 
the  most  solemn  and  most  esoteric  ordinances  of 
the  Christian  Church.  He  repudiated  the  au- 
thority of  earthly  potentates  to  compel  men*s 
Christian  belief,  but  retained  the  union  of  Church 
and  State  in  order  to  compel  their  Christian  obedi- 
ence. He  denied  the  infallibility  of  the  pope,  and 
the  miraculous  power  of  the  priesthood,  and  yet 
believed  in  the  Real  Presence,  if  not  the  adoration 
of  the  host.  His  disciples  are  to-day  imitating  \ 
his  example  rather  than  promoting  his  principles,  -^ 
and  possess  little  more  evangelical  faith  than  the 
Romanists  themselves. 

Henry  the  Eighth,  the  founder  of  the  Church  of 
England,  was  even  less  a  Protestant  than  Luther  ; 
and  the  present   tendency  of   many  of   the   most 


OF  MARRIAGE.  147 

influential  doctors  and  dignitaries  of  this  Church 
is  in  the  same  retrograde  direction  as  that  of  the 
Lutherans.  Yet  these  two  churches,  the  Anglican-^ 
and  the  Lutheran,  are  the  main  pillars  of  Protest- 
antism, —  the  Boaz  and  Jachin  of  the  porch  of 
the  new  temple.  I  have  not  lost  my  hope  that 
the  truth  of  gospel  simplicity  will  ultimately  pre-  "^ 
vail  over  ecclesiastical  bigotry  ;  but  it  may  require 
as  many  centuries  for  the  Christian  world  to 
unlock  the  trammels  of  the  Koman  hierarchy,  and 
to  escape  from  its  thraldom,  as  it  originally  re- 
quired to  fix  those  trammels  upon  the  consciences 
of  Christian  freemen. 

But  the  Romans  are  more  consistent  in  their 
system  of  monogamy  than  we  are ;  for  while  the 
dogmas  of  the  Church  forbid  polygamy,  and  even 
single  marriages  to  the  ministry,  they  provide  for 
the  surplus  women,  by  having  numerous  societies 
^  of  nuns  and  sisters  of  charity,  who  make  a  merit 
of  necessity,  by  assuming  the  vows  of  perpetual 
celibacy,  to  serve  the  Church,  and  acquire  religious 
merit.  As  Protestants,  we  have  been  taught  to 
believe  that  these  monastic  institutions  have  proved 
to  be  schools  of  vice,  and  that  the  vows  of  perpet- 


148  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

ual  chastity  assumed  in  them  are  unnatural  and 
wicked,  and  that  they  are  often  violated  under  the 
detestable  hypocrisy  of  sacerdotal  sanctity.*     For 

*  The  following  citations  are  from  Froude's  Hist,  of  Eng., 
vol.  ii.,  chap.  10.  " 

"  Only  light  reference  will  be  made  in  this  place  to  the 
darker  scandals  by  which  the  abbeys  were  dishonored.  Such 
things  there  really  were,  to  an  extent  which  it  may  be  painful 
to  believe,  but  which  evidence  too  abundantly  proves." 

Among  other  specifications,  Mr.  Froude  cites  the  letter  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (written  A.D.  1489)  to  the  Abbot  of 
St.  Albans,  wherein  he  accuses  him  thus:  "  'Not  a  few  of  your 
fellow  monks  and  brethren,  as  we  most  deeply  grieve  to  learn, 
giving  themselves  over  to  a  reprobate  mind,  laying  aside  the 
fear  of  God,  do  lead  only  a  life  of  lasciviousness,  —  nay,  as  is 
horrible  to  relate,  be  not  afraid  to  defile  the  holy  places,  even 
the  very  churches  of  God,  by  infamous  intercourse  with  nuns. 
You  yourself,  moreover,  among  other  grave  enormities  and 
abominable  crimes  whereof  you  are  guilty,  and  for  which  you 
are  noted  and  diff'amed,  have,  in  the  first  place,  admitted  a  cer- 
tain married  woman  named  Elena  Germyn,  who  has  separated 
herself,  without  just  cause,  from  her  husband,  and  for  some 
time  past  has  lived  in  adultery  with  another  man,  to  be  a  nun, 
or  sister  in  the  Priory  of  Bray;  and  .  .  .  Father  Thomas 
Sudbury,  one  of  your  brother  monks,  publicly,  notoriously,  and 
without  interference  or  punishment  from  you,  has  associated 
and  still  associates  with  this  woman,  as  an  adulterer  with  his 
harlot.    Moreover,  divers  other  of  your  brethren  and  fellow- 


OF  MARRIAGE.  149 

these  reasons,  we  have  suppressed  the  nunneries  j^ 

but  we  have  made  no  provision  for  the  nuns,  an^/^ 
those  who  would  have  become  nuns.  In  those 
institutions  they  were,  at  least,  assured  of  a  home 
and  a  support,  even  if  they  did  learn  vice ;  but 
now,  when  thrown  upon  the  world,  they. are  still 
more  exposed  to  vice,  and  are  without  a  home  and 
without  support.  Under  Catholic  monogamy,  if  a 
young  woman  made  a  false  step,  she  could  hide 


monks  have  resorted  and  do  resort  continually  to  her  and  other 
women  at  the  same  place,  as  to  a  public  brothel  or  receiving 
house.  Nor  is  Bray  the  only  house  into  which  you  have  intro- 
duced disorder.  At  the  Nunnery  of  Sapwell,  you  depose  those 
who  are  good  and  religious,  you  promote  to  the  highest  dignities 
the  worthless  and  the  vicious.'  " 

In  the  year  1536,  the  Report  of  Special  Commissioners  ap- 
pointed to  inspect  the  Monasteries  of  England  was  laid  before 
parliament,  by  which  it  appeared,  says  Mr.  Froude,  that  "  two- 
thirds  of  the  monks  in  England  were  living  in  habits  which 
may  not  be  described.  .  .  .  The  case  against  the  monas- 
teries was  complete;  and  there  is  no  occasion  either  to  be 
surprised  or  peculiarly  horrified  at  the  discovery.  The  demor- 
alization which  was  exposed  was  nothing  less  and  nothing  more 
than  the  condition  into  which  men  of  average  nature  compelled 
to  celibacy,  and  living  as  the  exponents  of  a  system  which  they 
disbelieved,  were  certain  to  fall." 


d 


150  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

her  shame  in  a  convent,  and  devote  her  future  life 
I  to  penitence  and  prayer ;  but,  under  Protestant 
I  monogamy,  the  frail  fair  sinner  has  no  such  refuge. 
Her  first  lapse  from  virtue  shuts  her  out  forever 
from  the  respect  and  sympathy  of  the  world,  and 
from  the  hope  of  future  reformation ;  and  her 
downward  career  to  the  gates  of  hell  is  so  gen- 
erally taken  for  granted,  that  it  becomes  almost 
a  certainty.  The  only  safe  and  proper  provision 
for  homeless  women  is  marriage.  An  early  mar- 
riage will  usually  save  them  from  the  dangers  to 
< which  they  are  exposed.  Monogamy  cannot  secure  ^ 
their  marriage ;  but_£olygamy  can  :  yet  we  are 
taught  to  look  with  horrol-^wfiinpolygamy  as  one 
of  the  "  relics  of  barbarism,"  although  it  is  plainly 
/taught  in  the  Bible,  and  is  the  only  social  system 
which  provides  marriage  for  all,  and  which  secures 
the  honest  and  lawful  gratification  of  those  impet- 
uous passions  which  must  be  and  which  will  be 
indulged  in  some  manner,  if  not  by  marriage,  then 
without  it ;  while  we  wink  at  all  the  disgusting 
abominations  of  prostitution,  divorce,  adultery, 
and  other  vices,  which  are  the  well-known  and  the 
inevitable  results  of  restricted  marriage.     Monoga- 


OF  MARRIAGE.  151 

my,  in  "  forbidding  to   marry,"  assumes   all   the  \ 
curses  which  this  prohibition  entails.      We  must 
choose  between  the  system  which  provides  mar- 
riage for  all,  with  comparative  purity,  or  the  system 
of  restricted  marriage  with  inevitable  impurity. 

IMPURITY   OP   MODERN   MONOGAMY. 

f        The  Bible  forbids  prostitution,  but  permits  po-\ 
^  lygamy.      The  ancient  Greeks   and   Romans  for^ 
bade  polygamy,  but  permitted  prostitution.     Mod- 
ern monogamy  pretends  to  forbid  both,  but  really 
permits  prostitution  also.   Our  monogamous  moral- 
ity is,  therefore,  that  of   ancient  paganism,  and 
not  that  of  the  Bible  ;  and  prostitution  is  as  much 
a  necessary  part   of   our  social  system  as  it  was 
of  that  at  Athens,  at  Corinth,  or  at  Rome.     Our 
magistrates    are    not   ignorant   of    the    extent    of 
public  licentiousness  ;  but  they  do   not  attempt  to 
suppress  it.     They  only  seek  to   conceal   it,  and    \ 
confine  it,  if   possible,  within  its  present  limits, 
V  requiring  its  votaries  to  keep  it  in  the  dark.     Our  / 
police-officers  know  almost   every  prostitute   that 
walks  the  street,  and  allow  her  to  ply  her  nefa- 
rious trade  unmolested,  so  long  as   she   is  polite 


reputed     j 
),  in  re-  J 

t  at  it,"/ 


152  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

and  unobtrusive.  As  the  Spartans  are  reputed 
to  have  said  to  the  youth  of  their  state, 
spect  to  theft,  "  Steal,  hut  do  not  he  caught 
so  the  guardians  of  our  public  morals  say,  "  You 
may  be  as  licentious  as  you  please,  only  make  no 
public  display  of  your  immorality."  The  reason 
,of  this  connivance  at  prostitution  must  be  be- 
cause our  legislators  and  judges  believe  its  sup- 
pression to  be  impossible  ;  and,  with  our  system 
of  monogamy,  it  is  impossible.  If  there  must  be 
a  multitude  of  women  unmarried  and  unprovided 
for,  there  will  be  a  multitude  of  prostitutes ; 
and,  if  there  are  a  multitude  of  prostitutes,  there 
will  be  a  multitude  of  men,  who,  like  Shak- 
speare's  FalstafF,  will  decline  marriage,  because 
they  can  be  "  better  accommodated  than  with  a 
wife :  "  and  so  the  evil  will  go  on  continually  in- 
creasing and  propagating  itself.  The  Foundling 
Hospital,  the  Five  Points  House  of  Industry, 
and  the  Home  for  Friendless  and  Abandoned 
Women,  must  be  built  alongside  of  the  brothel; 
and  their  numerous  inmates  must  be  maintained 
either  by  public  im.  or  by  Christian  charity 
(most  frequently  by  the   latter)  :    so  that    honest 


OF  MARRIAGE.  153 

men  must  support  their  own  wives  and  children 
and  also  the  cast-off  drabs  and  bastards  of  un- 
principled libertines.  If  we  must  have  public 
prostitutes,  let  us  have  them  openly  and  boldly,  as 
the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  did  ;  and  let  them 
be  publicly  licensed,  as  they  were  under  Caligula, 
and  as  they  are  said  to  be  still  in  France  ;  and  let 
the  state  derive,  at  least,  sufficient  revenue  from 
them  to  bury  their  murdered  infants,  and  to  bring 
up  their  abandoned  foundlings. 

THE   HIGHER   LAW   OF    CHRISTIAN   PHILANTHROPY. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood  in  what  I  have 
just  said.  I  do  not  depreciate  that  form  of  charity 
which  seeks  out  the  victims  of  licentiousness,  and 
makes  them  the  special  objects  of  its  beneficence. 
I  would  not  say  one  word  in  its  disparagement. 
On  the  contrary,  I  acknowledge  its  genuineness. 
Such  charity  is  worthy  of  great  commendation  : 
it  is  in  a  special  sense  true  Christian  charity,  for 
it  is  eminently  Christ-like  ;  since  he  came  to  seek 
and  to  save  the  lost,  and  disdained  not  to  be  called 
the  Friend  of  publicans  and  sinners.  But  what  I 
demand  is  this,  that  this  form  of  Christian  char- 


154  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

ity  should  so  expand  its  efforts  and  its  aims  as 
fully  to  meet  the  case,  and  yield  a  permanent  '\ 
and  radical  relief  to  that  class  of  the  poor  and  / 
miserable  which  it  has  taken  under  its  charge./ 
Let  its  aims  be  so  comprehensive,  so  high,  so  broad, 
and  so  deep,  that  it  cannot  be  satisfied  with  any 
thing  less  than  a  prevention  of  the  "social  evil" 
which  it  has  hitherto  attempted  only  to  alleviate.^ 
And  it  is  certainly  no  slander  to  our  present  chari- 
ties of  this  kind,  to  say  that  the  alleviation  which 
they  have  effected  is  altogether  inadequate.  The 
miserable  victims  of  this  vice  are  increasing 
faster  than  the  ability  or  the  disposition  to  relieve 
them.  The  most  enthusiastic  philanthropists  have 
already  become  disheartened  in  vainly  endeavor- 
ing to  furnish  sufficient  relief,  and  they  can  see  no 
means  of  prevention.  They  are  at  their  wits'- 
end ;  and  some  of  them  have  become  fully  aware, 
that,  under  our  present  social  system,  no  preven- 
tion can  be  possible.  "  While  sin  is  in  the 
world,"  some  say,  "  we  cannot  prevent  men  and 
women  from  sinning :  they  will  sin,  in  spite  of  us 
and  in  spite  of  every  thing ;  and  the  world  itself 
is  growing  more  and   more    depraved  and  wicked 


OF  MARRIAGE.  155 

every  day.     All  that  we  can  do  is  to  show  Chris- 
tian mercy,  and  grant  some  present  relief." 

But  the  true  Christian  philanthropist  does  not 
rest  satisfied  in  such  conclusions.  He  knows  that 
it  is  not  true  that  the  world  is  growing  worse  and 
worse,  but  that  facts  and  statistics  prove  the 
contrary.  He  believes  in  the  "  good  time  com- 
ing," and  that  the  world  is  actually  growing  better 
and  better.  Many  causes  of  human  misery  have 
been  discovered  and  removed,  or  greatly  dimin- 
ished, and  he  hopes  that  more  will  be.  The 
average  duration  of  human  life  is  actually  being 
prolonged.  The  average  state  of  health  is  incon- 
testably  being  improved.  Christianity  has  not 
been  instituted  in  vain.  It  has  already  accom- 
plished wonders  of  mercy  and  grace,  and  its 
blessed  work  of  reform  is  still  going  on.  The 
true  philanthropist,  therefore,  must  not  and  will 
not  despair.  If  no  preventive  of  licentiousness 
has  hitherto  been  found,  and  if  it  be  impossible  to 
find  any  under  our  present  social  system  of  mar- 
riage, we  must  look  for  it  under  some  other  sys- 
tem. Marriage  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  marriage. 


156  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

) 

•  IS    THE    "social    evil"    PREVENTIBLE  ? 

But  perhaps  some  may  suppose  that  sincere  and 
genuine  piety  is  a  sufficient  preventive  of  licen- 
[  tiousness,  and  that,  when  all  the  people   become 

'  truly  converted,  and  well   instructed   in   religious 

\  knowledge,    then   they  will   be    secure    from   this 

r^  /vice.     I  have  great  confidence  in  genuine  piety,^ 

*  N   and  believe  that  it  is  indeed  the  best  antidote  to  all  ' 

the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to  ;  but  the  difficulty  is, 
that  it  is  this  very  licentiousness  which  is  hinder- 
C  ing  people  from  becoming  pious.  And,  besides 
this,  it  is  not  from  want  of  religious  knowledge 
that  people  become  licentious :  they  have  already 
had  line  upon  line,  and  precept  upon  precept,  for 
many  successive  generations.  They  know  that 
licentiousness  is  a  sin  ;  and  they  know,  that,  when 
they  fall  into  it,  they  become  liable  to  the  most 
fearful  punishments,  both  in  this  life  and  in  the 
world  to  come  :  but  the  tyranny  of  monogamy  has 
left  them  no  alternative  ;  they  have  no  other  avail- 
able means  of  gratifying  the  wants  of  nature. 
Marriage  is  impossible  to  half  the  women,  and  a 
single  marriage  is  inadequate  to  the  requirements 


OF  MARRIAGE.  157 

of  half  the  men.     Pious  exhortation  is  but  idle 
talk  to   those  who  are  sinning   from   the   excite- 
ment of   amorous   desire    of    which   there    is   no 
possible  gratification  except  a  sinful  one.     If  the 
philanthropist  who  is  giving  them  these  exhorta- 
tions cannot  point  out  a  lawful  means  of  meeting 
those  natural  wants,  of  what  profit  can  his  exhor- 
tations be?     "If   a  brother  or  a  sister  be  nakedA 
and  destitute  of   daily  food,  and  one   of  you  say    \ 
unto  them,  Depart  in  peace,  be  ye  warmed  and     I 
filled;    notwithstanding   ye   give   them   not   those    / 
things  which  are  needful  to  the  body ;  what  dot^  ^ 
it  profit?"     It  is  not  instruction  which  our  "des- 
titute  and   abandoned  women "  want ;    they  want 
marriage ;    they   want    homes    of    their   own    to 
shelter  them,  and  husbands  to  love  them  and  to 
provide  for  them.     And  I  have   already  demon- 
strated that  it  is  their  right  to  have  them ;  their 
natural  and  unquestionable   right,   of   which   the 
injustice  and  tyranny   of   monogamy  has   cruelly 
deprived  them.     Society  has  wronged  them ;  and 
with  their  own  peculiar,  intuitive  instinct  they  feel 
it,  though  they  cannot  tell  exactly  how.     Society, 
somehow,  has   made   war   upon    them,    most   un- 


158  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

justly  ;    and,  when   they   become   licentious,  it   is 
from  an  instinctive  feeling  of   self-defence ;    it  is 
only  to  take  such  justifiable  revenge  upon   society 
as  a  state    of  warfare  authorizes,  and   has,  in    a  / 
manner,  rendered  necessary. 

ISTow,  let  this  warfare  cease.     Let  the  women 
have  their  rights.     Let  every  Avoman  have  a  hus-,.,..,^^ 
y^^band    and   a  home ;    and  let  every  man  have  as  ^ 
many  women  as  he  can  love,  and  as  can  love  him, 
and  as  he  is  able  to  support,  until  all  the  women 
are  provided  for  :  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  pros-'A 
titution  cease  ;    and  then  the  happy  time  that  the 
poet  dreamed  of,  when  he  put  the  apparently  ex- 
travagant sentiment  into  his  hero's  mouth,  which  I 
have  placed  upon  my  titlepage,  will  have  come  at 
last,  and 

"  There  shall  be  no  more  widows  in  the  land."  * 

*  "  No  man  who  loves  his  kind  can  in  these  days  rest  con- 
tent with  waiting  as  a  servant  upon  human  misery,  when  it  is 
^in  so  many  cases  possible  to  anticipate  and  avert  it.  Preven-'~~^ 
'  tion  is  better  than  cure;  and  it  is  now  clear  to  all  that  a  large 
part  of  human  suffering  is  preventible  by  improved  social  ar- 
rangements. Charity  will  now,  if  it  be  genuine,  fix  upon  this 
enterprise  as  greater,  more  widely  and  permanently  beneficial, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  159 

MONOGAMY    OCCASIONS    SEDUCTION    AND    RUIN. 

If  any  of  my  readers  have  failed  to  see  that 
there    is    any  necessary  connection   between    mo- 

and  therefore  more  Christian,  than  the  other.  It  will  not,  in- 
deed, neglect  the  lower  task  of  relieving  and  consoling  those, 
who,  whether  through  the  errors  and  unskilful  arrangements  of 
society,  or  through  causes  not  yet  preventible,  have  actually 
fallen  into  calamity.  Its  compassion  will  be  all  the  deeper,  its 
relief  more  prompt  and  zealous,  because  it  does  not  generally, 
as  former  generations  did,  recognize  such  calamities  to  be  part 
of  man's  inevitable  destiny.  When  the  sick  man  has  been  vr 
ited,  and  every  thing  done  which  skill  and  assiduity  can  do  to 

Ccure  him,  modern  charity  will  go  on  to  consider  the  causes  of 
his  malady,  and  then  to  inquire  whether  others  incur  the  same 
dangers,  and  may  be  warned  in  time.  When  the  starving  man 
has  been  relieved,  modern  charity  inquires  whether  any  fault  in 
the  social  system  deprived  him  of  his  share  of  Nature's  bounty. 

Cany  unjust  advantage  taken  by  the  strong  over  the  weak,  any 
rudeness  or  want  of  culture  in  himself,  wrecking  his  virtue  and 
his  habits  of  thrift."  [I  continue  this  quotation  with  a  reserva- 
tion; applying  it  to  the  first  Roman  Christians,  but  doubting  its 
truthfulness  in  respect  to  the  "  apostolic,"  Jewish  Christians.] 

"  The  first  Christians  were  probably  not  so  much  b  opeless  of 
accomplishing  great  social  reforms,  as  unripe  for  the  conception 
of  them.  They  did  not  easily  recognize  evil  to  be  evil,  and  did 
pot  believe,  or  rather  had  never  dreamed,  that  it  could  be  cured. 
Habit  dulls  the  senses,  and  puts  the  critical  faculty  to  sleep. 


< 


160  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

nogamy  aud  female  ruin,  I  beg  them  to  examine 
carefully  the  following  observations.  It  has  been 
demonstrated,  in  a  former  chapter,  that  monogamy 
leaves  a  multitude  of  women  unprotected,  and  un- 
provided with  the  privileges  of  marriage.     It  does 

The  fierceness  and  hardness  of  ancient  manners  is  apparent  to  us ; 
but  the  ancients  themselves  were  not  shocked  by  sights  which 
were  familiar  to  them.  To  us  it  is  sickening  to  think  of  the 
gladiatorial  show,  of  the  massacres  common  in  Koman  warfare, 
of  the  infanticide  practised  by  grave  and  respectable  citizens, 
who  did  not  merely  condemn  their  children  to  death,  but  often 
in  practice,  as  they  well  knew,  to  what  was  still  worse,  —  a  life 
of  prostitution  and  beggary.  The  Roman  regarded  a  gladiato- 
rial show  as  we  regard  a  hunt;  the  news  of  the  slaughter  of  two 
hundred  thousand  Helvetians  by  Caesar,  or  half  a  million  Jews 
by  Titus,  excited  in  his  mind  a  thrill  of  triumph ;  infanticide 
committed  by  a  friend  appeared  to  him  a  prudent  measure  of 
household  economy.  To  shake  off  this  paralysis  of  the  moral 
sense  produced  by  habit,  to  see  misery  to  be  misery,  and  cruelty 
to  be  cruelty,  requires  not  merely  a  strong,  but  a  trained  and 
matured  compassion.  It  was  as  much,  probably,  as  the  first 
Christian  could  learn  at  once,  to  relieve  the  sick,  the  starving, 
and  the  desolate.  Only  after  centuries  of  this  simple  philan- 
thropy could  they  learn  to  criticise  the  fundamental  usages  of 
society  itself,  and  acquire  courage  to  pronounce  that,  however 
deeply  rooted  and  time  honored,  they  were  in  many  cases 
shocking  to  humanity. 

"  Closely  connected  with  this  insensibility  to  the  real  char- 


OF  MARRIAGE.  161 

not  and  it  cannot  furnish  half  of  them  with  hus- 
bands and  homes  of  their  own :  hence  the  galling 
bondage  of  female  dependence  ;  hence  the  difficulty 
of  woman's  finding  her  "  sphere."  Yet  there  is 
nothing  mysterious  or  doubtful  about  what  consti- 
tutes her  sphere ;  for  it  is  defined  by  the  simple 
^-^  term  "  home,"  —  that  word,  above  all  others,  so 
charming,  and  so  suggestive  of  every  excellence  in 
the  female  character,  and  of  all  the  sweet  memories 
which  cluster  round  the  blessed  names  of  mother, 

acter  of  common  usages  is  a  positive  unwillingness  to  reform 
them.  The  argument  of  prejudice  is  twofold.  It  is  not  only 
that  what  has  lasted  a  long  time  must  be  right,  but  also  that 
what  has  lasted  a  long  time,  right  or  wrong,  must  be  intended  / 
to  continue.  We  are  advanced  by  eighteen  hundred  years  be- 
yond the  apostolic  generation.  Our  minds  are  set  free,  so  that 
we  may  boldly  criticise  the  usages  around  us,  knowing  them  to 
be  but  imperfect  essays  toward  order  and  happiness,  and  no 
divinely  or  supernaturally  ordained  constitution  which  it  would 
be  impious  to  change.  We  have  witnessed  improvements  in 
physical  well-being  which  incline  us  to  expect  further  progress, 
and  make  us  keen-sighted  to  detect  the  evils  and  miseries  that 
remain.  Thus  ought  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity  to  work  in 
these  days,  and  thus,  plainly  enough,  it  does  work.  These  in- 
vestigations are  constantly  being  made,  these  reforms  com- 
menced." —  Ecce  Homo. 
11 


162  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

sister,  and  bride.  But,  alas  !  the  practical  mystery 
with  an  immense  number  of  women  still  remains  ; 
and  that  is,  how  to  find  a  home.  A  father's'  house 
is  no  longer  a  home  to  many  a  young  woman  ;  per- 
haps that  father  is  poor,  and  the  burden  of  years 
is  at  last  superadded  to  that  of  poverty.  He  cheer- 
fully toiled  for  his  child  while  she  was  young  and 
necessarily  dependent  upon  him  ;  and,  as  she  grew 
up  to  womanhood,  he  stinted  not  to  bestow  upon 
her  such  learning  and  such  accomplishments  as  his 
scanty  means  could  command  ;  and  his  heart  was 
often  cheered  by  the  hope  of  seeing  her  well  mar- 
ried and  well  settled  in  life  :  but,  as  these  hopes  are 
not  realized,  he  begins  to  feel  the  burden  of  her 
maintenance.  "  She  is  old  enough  to  provide  for 
herself,"  and  "Why  doesn't  she  get  married?" 
Sure  enough  !  poor  thing,  why  doesn't  she  ?  But 
oh  !  how  cruel  to  reproach  her  with  her  involuntary 
dependence  and  her  miserable  lot !  And  it  is  an 
immense  relief  to  her,  when  it  is  at  length  decided 
that  she  must  go  out  to  service.  And  so  she  goes 
to  toil  for  bread  among  strangers.  Her  frail  form\ 
is  overburdened,  and  often  broken  down,  by  unre-  j 
mitting  and  ill-requited  labor,  aird  her  young  heart  / 


OF  MARRIAGE.  163 

not  unfrequently  corrupted  and  hardened  by  un- 
avoidable contact  and  contamination  with  vice. 

THE   harlot's   progress. 

What  wonder  is  it,  then,  that,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, the  unprotected,  wearied,  homesick  girl 
should  yield  a  reluctant  ear  to  the  seductive  flat; 
teries  of  the  profligate  libertine,  who  scruples  not 
to  utter  vows  of  constancy,  and  draw  fond  pictures 
of  future  afiluence,  to  be  shared  with  her  ;  but  who, 
having  accomplished  his  fiendish  purpose,  and 
stolen  from  her,  forever,  her  only  dower  of  inno- 
cence and  purity,  now  ignores  his  vows  and  prom- 
ises, and  casts  her  off,  to  seek  and  ruin  another 
victim  !  "What  shall  become  of  that  poor,  desolate, 
guilty,  heart-broken  wretch  thus  ruthlessly  aban- 
doned ?  Alas !  the  result  is  scarcely  doubtful :  it 
is  too  often  experienced.  Despised  by  herself  no 
less  than  by  the  world,  driven  in  anger  from  the 
paternal  threshold,  the  gates  of  honest  toil  and  the 
doors  of  Christian  charity  closed  against  her,  she 
yields  to  hopeless  despair,  and,  even  for  the  mis- 
erable purpose  of  prolonging  a  wretched  existence, 
she  abandons  herself  at  length  to  a  life  of  open 


164  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

shame  ;  becoming  herself  the  means  of  propagat- 
ing that  misery  of  which  she  is  such  an  unhappy 
victim. 

The   artificial    system   of  monogamy  oiFers  up\ 
other  sacrifices  on  the  unholy  altar  of  abandoned  \ 
lust,   besides   those    furnished    from    among    the  / 
daughters   of    toil    or   the   victims   of    seduction. 
The  accomplished,  the  refined,  the  proud,  and  the 
wealthy  have   furnished   their  full   proportion   to 
swell  the  aggregate  number  of  the  lost.     We  hope, 
of  course,  that  much  the  larger  portion  of  women 
who  have  been  well  brought  up,  and  have  failed  to 
marry,  have   lived   and   died   honest   old    maids. 
They  never  quite  lost  their  hope.     Poor,  simple 
souls,  they  had  always  been  told  that  their  hus- 
bands would  come  for  them  by  and  by  ;    that  there 
is  a  Jack  for  every  Gill,  as  many  men  as  women 
in  the  world  ;    and  so  they  sat  and  waited,  — 

"  Rusticus  expectat,  dum  defluat  amnis  ;  at  ille 
Labitur  et  labetur  in  omne  volubilis  gevum." 

And  thus  the  ceaseless  tide  of  human  life  rolls 
on  and  on,  the  number  of  competitors  among  mar- 
riageable maids  abates  not,  the   number  of  men 


01  MABBIAGE.  165 

who  are  ready  to  marry  augments  not.  Some, 
therefore,  among  the  higher  and  the  middling  ranks 
of  life,  who  ought  to  die  old  maids,  according  to 
the  system  of  monogamy,  do  not  so  die.  The  very 
pride  and  spirit  of  accomplished  women  have  some- 
times proved  their  ruin.  When  they  have  dis- 
covered that  real  men  are  comparatively  rare  in 
the  matrimonial  market,  and  that  there  are  more 
rakes  and  triflers  than  honest  lovers  in  society,  and 
that  there  cannot  be  husbands  and  homes  provided 
for  more  than  half  the  women,  —  being  unable  to 
suppress  all  their  strong  susceptibilities  of  love,  and 
unwilling  to  surrender  all  their  rights  to  its  enjoy- 
ment,—  they  have  deliberately  determined  to  en- 
joy what  they  can  without  marriage  ;  and  thus  to 
defy  the  scorn  of  men  and  the  wrath  of  God. 

But  passion  does  not  impel  so  great  a  number  of 
intelligent  women  to  self-abandonment,  as  a  desire 
of  self-support  and  a  dread  of  being  an  intolerable 
burden  to  others.  Under  such  apprehensions,  many 
unhappy  women,  who  had  been  nursed  in  the  lap 
of  luxury,  and  accustomed  to  every  indulgence 
during  childhood,  have  found,  after  coming  of 
age,  that  as  year  after  year  passed  round,  and  no 


166  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

eligible  opportunity  of  marriage  occurred,  their 
presence  at  home  was  becoming  more  and  more 
unwelcome,  and  their  formidable  bills  of  expenses 
more  and  more  reluctantly  allowed,  till  they  have 
at  last  fled  from  those  halls  of  wealth,  and  from 
an  intolerable  dependence  on  churlish  relatives,  to 
a  still  more  wretched  existence  in  the  haunts  of 
public  vice. 

How  great  is  the  injustice  and  oppression  of  the 
social  system  which  makes  no  other  provision  for  so 
many  of  its  most  beautiful  and  originally  innocent 
daughters  than  this  !  Well  may  the  poet  thus  rave 
against  the  social  tyranny  of  our  system. 

"  Cursed  be  the  social  lies  that  warp  us  from  the  living  truth ; 
Cursed  be  the  social  wants  that  sin  against  the  strength  of 

youth ; 
Cursed  be  the  sickly  forms  that  err  from  honest  Nature's 

rule."  Tennyson. 

MONOGAMY  CAUSES   CHASTITY  AND  RELIGION   TO   BE 
HATED. 

y-  Monogamy  being  partial  in  its  privileges,  and 
oppressive  in  its  prohibitions,  like  every  other  op- 
pressive and  unjust  thing,  provokes  resentment  and 

V 


/  em 


OF  MARRIAGE.  167 


Oimity,  and  cannot  be  thoroughly  maintained  and 
honestly  observed.  Human  nature  is  constantly 
rebelling  against  it,  and  is  persistently  asserting  its 
inherent  and  inalienable  right  to  all  the  benefits  of 
love  and  marriage,  of  which  this  system  has  de- 
prived it.  These  struggles  for  freedom  from  the 
oppression  of  monogamy,  being  made  in  ignorance 
of  the  privileges  of  polygamy,  have  assumed  the 
form  of  defiant  transgression  against  the  laws  of 
chastity  itself;  for  the  popular  conscience  is  so 
depraved  by  the  erroneous  education  of  our  social 
system,  as  to  regard  the  restrictions  of  monogamy 
as  identical  with  those  of  religion.  And,  finding 
them  too  hard  to  be  borne,  instead  of  resorting  to 
the  just  and  proper  alternative  of  polygamy,  many 
persons  have  broken  away  from  all  moral  restraint 
whatever,  have  given  loose  rein  to  impetuous  pas- 
sion, and  have  become  lost  to  every  sentiment  of 
virtue  and  to  every  hope  of  heaven. 

As  Christianity  itself  was  outraged   and   repu- 
diated at  the  period  of  the  French  Revolution,  on 
account  of  the  abuses  of  Roman  Catholicism,  with 
which  the  popular  mind  had  confounded  it  (Roman- 1 
y^  ism  being  the  only  acknowledged  form  of  Chris-/ 


( 


168  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

tianity  then  known  in  that  country,  so  that,  when 
they  rose  against  it,  they  rose  against  Christianity 
itself,  and  became  raging  demons  of  barbarity  and 
crime),  so  now,  throughout  Europe  and  America,  is 
chastity  outraged  and  religion  repudiated  on  ac- 
count of  the  unjust  restrictions  which  monogamy 
has  instituted  in  their  names.  But  neither  religion 
nor  chastity  are  the  real  objects  of  this  hatred. 
All  men  sincerely  respect  the  one  and  revere  the 
other.  Yet  many  cannot  see  how  to  assert  their 
natural  rights  and  achieve  their  long-lost  freedom 
without  destroying  both.  Polygamy  alone  solves 
the  problem  how  those  rights  can  be  enjoyed  while 
chastity  is  preserved  and  religion  maintained  ;  for 
polygamy  alone  can  honestly  furnish  sufficient  in- 
dulgence of  love  to  all  the  men,  and  sufficient  pro- 
tection of  marriage  to  all  the  women.  Monogamy 
says  to  half  the  women,  ''  Ye  cannot  marry,  and  \ 
hence  ye  shall  not  love ; "  and  to  every  man  it 
says,  "  Thou  canst  marry  but  one  woman,  and  one 
only  shalt  thou  love,"  without  regard  to  the  condi- 
tion of  that  woman,  or  her  ability  or  inability  to 
meet  his  conjugal  wants.  \ 

It  is  a  physical  fact  that  women  are  not  only 


OF  MARRIAGE.  169 

less  inclined  to  amorous  passion  than  the  men,  at  \ 
all  times,  but  they  are  also  subject  to  interruptions     1 
and   periodical  changes,  which  men  do  not  expe- 
rience.    During  the  long  period  of  lactation,  or\ 
nursing,  most  women  have  a  positive  repugnance 
to  the  embraces  of  love,  as  well  as   during  the 
progress  of  certain  nervous  chronic  disorders  pecu- 
liar to  the  sex,  which  are  aggravated,  if  not  caused, 
^  by  frequent  connubial  intercourse  ;  so  much  so,  that^ 
some  medical  men  insist  upon   entire  separation^ 
from  the  marriage-bed  during  the  continuance  of 
these  disorders,  and  also  during  the  period  of  lacta- 
tion.    At  such  times,  one  would  suppose  that  no 
civilized  man,  or  at  least  that  no  Christian  man, 
could  be  so  brutal  and  so  cruel  as  to  force  his  wife 
to  yield  to  his  propensities  against  her  own  incli- 
nations and  in  spite  of  her  repeated  and  earnest 
remonstrances :  but  nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  there  are  many  thousands  of  just  such  Chris- 

r  tian  men  ;  for  what  can  the  poor  monogamist  do  ?  - 

[     The  healthful  currents  of  vigorous  life  impel  him 

\     to  amorous  desire ;  and  he  cannot  aiford  to   shut 

\  down  the  gates  or  to  shut  off  the  steam.     To  do  so 

would  involve  immense  loss  of  pleasure  and  of 


170  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

power.  The  passions  furnish  the  only  streams  to 
turn  the  machinery  of  action ;  and  love  is  the 
strongest  of  them  all.  While  there  is  the  hope  of 
indulgence,  the  machinery  runs  smoothly,  and  the 
whole  man  is  full  of  life  and  buoyancy  and  power ; 
but,  if  this  master-passion  must  be  repressed,  its 
unnatural  restraint  absorbs  all  the  remaining 
strength  of  the  man,  and  he  is  no  better  than  a 
hermit  or  a  monk.  Hence  no  vigorous  man  is 
willing  to  endure  this  restraint.  Yet  the  Christian 
monogamist  has  been  taught  that  it  is  both  a  sin 
and  a  shame  to  look  for  the  gratification  of  his 
desires  away  from  home  ;  so  the  poor  heart-broken 
and  back-broken  wife  must  submit  to  torture,  and 
so  the  otherwise  kind  and  honorable  husband  must 
commit  violence  upon  his  dearest  friend,  whom  he>^ 
has  most  solemnly  promised  to  love  and  to  cherish, 
in  sickness  and  in  health,  till  death  shall  part  them. 
Many  a  poor  wife  then  prays  for  death  to  part 
them  soon.  But  other  men,  at  such  times,  dis- 
daining to  avail  themselves  of  extorted  pleasures, 
which  can  afford  so  little  satisfaction,  and  despising 
that  religion  which  will  justify  or  allow  such  cruel 
brutality,    then    steal   away  from    their   unwilling 


OF  MARRIAGE.  171 

wives,  and,  in  defiance  of  the  most  solemn  obliga- 
tions and  sacred  laws  of  God  and  man,  go  and  do 
worse ;  defiling  the  beds  of  virgin  innocence,  or 
wasting  their  health  and  strength  upon  vile  prosti- 
tutes. Which  horn  of  this  trilemma  should  the 
vigorous  husband  of  this  invalid  woman  choose ; 
imbecile  continence,  wicked  licentiousness,  or  matri- 
monial brutality  ?  Would  not  polygamy  be  an  alter- 
native preferable  to  either?  would  it  not  be  more 
just  and  more  merciful  than  either?  It  is  just  and 
merciful  to  both  the  men  and  the  women ;  it  pre- 
serves the  marriage-bed  undefiled  ;  it  provides  hus- 
,bands  for  all  the  women  ;  and  it  allows  each  man 
to  take  more  than  one  wife  when  circumstances 
warrant  and  require  it.  And  they  often  do  require 
it.  The  extraordinary  vehemence  and  intensity  of 
the  amorous  propensity  which  some  men  expe- 
rience is  sufficient  of  itself  to  require  it.  Such 
men  can  no  more  restrain  this  desire  than  that  for 
their  necessary  food.  They  may  call  to  their  as- 
sistance every  motive  to  continence  that  can  be 
drawn  from  heaven  and  eartli  and  hell,  but  they 
often  call  in  vain  ;  for  the  intensity  of  this  passion 
sweeps  down  every  barrier,  and  rushes  to  its  grati- 


172  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

I    fication.     If,  then,  there  will  be  and  there  must  be 
/       indulgence,  let  it  be  such  as  is  regulated  and  con- 
trolled by  divine  and  natural  law.    God  who  made 
man,  and  who  knows  what  is  in  man,  has  provided 
sufficient   means   to  supply  his   natural   amorous 
wants.     Marriage  is  that  means  ;  and,  as  one  wife 
is   not  always  sufficient,  he  has   provided  more. 
/  There  are  women  enough,  and  no  man  need  be  \ 
■      either  pining  or  sinning  for  the  want  of  them.       y 


"  Take  the  good  the  gods  provide  thee : 
Lovely  Thais  sits  beside  thee, 
Blooming  like  an  Eastern  bride, 
In  flower  of  youth  and  beauty's  pride. 
Happy,  happy,  happy  pair ! 
None  but  the  brave. 
None  but  the  brave, 
None  but  the  brave  deserves  the  fair." 

GREAT  MEN  ARE   ALWAYS   POLYGAMISTS. 

And  it  is  the  brave,  the  gifted,  the  talented,  that 
deserve  the  fair,  who  have  always  desired  the  fair, 
and  won  the  fair.  "  Lovely  Thais"  never  refuses 
to  unveil  her  charms  to  the  true  hero.  Great  men 
always  recognize  the  voice  of  God  in  the  voice  of 


J 


OF  MARRIAGE.  173 

Nature,  no  matter  under  what  social  system  they 
may  live.      They   yield   to   the   natural    and   the 
divine   behests,  even   though    they  transgress   the 
/  laws  of  ordinary  social  life.    They  obey  God  rather 
than  men  ;  and  this  obedience  is  the  first  element  of 
their  greatness.     Ordinary  laws  may  be  sufficient 
to  restrain  ordinary  men ;  but  when  a  Samson  is 
within  their  bonds,  those  bonds  are  snapped  asun- 
der like  the  green  withes  and  the  new  ropes  of 
Delilah.     Yet,  were  not  our  social  laws  so  mani- 
festly arbitrary  and  oppressive,  such  eminent  phi- 
losophers as  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Bacon,  such  noble 
/heroes  as  Alexander,  Caesar,  Napoleon,  and  Nelson, \^ 
J^uch  divine  poets  as  Goethe,  Burns,  and  Byron, 
^5    and  such  enlightened  statesmen  as  Pericles,  Augus- 
tus, Buckingham,  Palmerston,  and  Webster,  and 
.^any  thousands  more,  would  never  have  incurred-^ 
the  odium  of  libertinism  as  they  have.     Although 
they  lived  under  the  system  of  monogamy,  they 
would  not  and  did  not  submit  to  it.     Their  noble 
natures  required  a  larger  indulgence,  and  they  took 
it,  law  or  no  law,  like  brave  men  as  they  were. 
And  there  are  many  more  such  men  than  the  world 
dreams  of  in  its   narrow  monogamic  philosophy ;  y^ 


174  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

and  yet  it  is  a  shame  and  a  pity  that  our  social  laws 
cannot  be  so  amended,  and  brought  into  harmony 
with  those  of  God  and  Nature,  that  our  noblest 
men  would  yield  them  the  most  prompt  obedience. 
And  is  it  not  a  sad  pity,  a  burning  shame,  and  a 
fearful  wrong  that  our  laws  are  such,  that  such  men 
cannot  acknowledge  their  mistresses,  and  avow 
their  children  ?  The  wrongs  of  these  women  and  >. 
I  children  are  crying  to  God  from  the  ground,  and^ 
^he  will  hear  and  judge.  These  great  men  are 
brave  ;  but  they  are  not  brave  enough.  They  have 
no  just  right  to  practise  their  polygamy  in  the 
dark.  Let  us  have  either  an  honest  monogamy  or 
/  an  avowed  polygamy.  Hence  it  is  that  I  am  called  \ 
by  the  justice  of  God  and  the  sufferings  of  human- 
ity to  appeal  to  every  honorable  sentiment  in  man- 
kind in  behalf  of  a  greater  freedom  to  marry,  and 
a  greater  purity  of  the  marriage  relation.  Let 
us  have  such  marriage  laws,  that  whatever  rela- 
tions any  honorable  man  shall  determine  to  form 
with  the  other  sex  can  be  honorably  formed  and 
honorably  maintained. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  175 


HYPOCRISY    OP   MONOGAMY. 


But  an  honest  monogamy  is  an  impossibility. 

''^Wherever  it  is  practised,  it  is  a  system  of  hypocrisyTX 

/  It  is  a  veil  of  abstemiousness  assumed  to  conceal  a   I 
mass  of  hidden  corruption.     Its  direct  tendency  ist/ 
to  stimulate  the  contemptible  vices  of  intrigue  and 
lying,  as  well  as  the  equally  detestable  ones  of  pros- 

^^itution  and  adultery.  By  attempting  to  deprive 
one-half  the  women  of  any  lawful  and  honorable 
means  of  amorous  pleasure,  and  by  allowing  the 
men  only  partial  and  inadequate  means,  it  impels 
a  multitude  of  each  sex  to  secret  transgression,  or 
else  to  open  profligacy  ;  and  thus  the  laws  of  chas- 
tity are  violated  on  every  hand,  and  truthfulness,  v 

I    integrity,  purity,  and  honor  are  becoming  but  un-  ) 

\  meaning  terms^ 

No  one  familiar  with  social  life  in  Europe  will 
dare  to  dispute  that  a  large  proportion  of  the 
upper  classes  of  society  there  are  addicted  to  some 

/form  of  licentiousness.  7  It  is  often  observed  there, 
that,  as  soon  as  the  women  marry,  they  throw  off 
the  restraints  of  chastity,  and  encourage  secret 
lovers  ;  and  while  each  of  the  men  live  openly  with 


176  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

one  woman  only,  or  with  none,  yet  they  indulge  in 
promiscuous  criminal  intercourse  to  an  incredible 

.  extent.  Now,  which  social  system  is  the  more 
honorable  and  manly,  the  more  virtuous  and  pure, 
the  one  more  in  accordance  with  Nature  and  the\ 

.  laws  of  Nature's  God,  —  a  pretended  and  a  corrupt  ) 
monogamy,  or  an  open  and  honest  polygamy?/ 
Which  manifests  the  more  base  and  selfish  pas- 
sion, —  the  man  who  espouses  the  partners  of  his 
love,  and  takes  them  to  his  home  and  his  heart, 
and  provides  for  them  and  their  children,  or  the 
man  who  steals  away  from  his  house  in  the  dark, 
and  indulges  his  dishonorable  and  degrading 
passion  in  secret  places,  and  then  abandons  the 
partners  of  his  guilty  pleasure  to  a  life  of  wretch- 
edness and  shame  and  want? 

I \^ -Domestic  happiness,  thou  only  bliss 
Of  Paradise  that  has  survived  the  fall ! 
Though  few  now  taste  thee  unimpaired  and  pi^re, 
Or,  tasting,  long  enjoy  thee  !     .     .     . 
Thou  art  the  nurse  of  Virtue  :  in  thine  arms 
She  smiles,  appearing,  as  in  truth  she  is. 
Heaven-born,  and  destined  to  the  skies  again. 
Thou  art  not  known  where  Pleasure  is  adored, 
That  reeling  goddess  with  tlie  zoneless  waist 


OF  MARRIAGE.  177 

And  wandering  eyes,  still  leaning  on  the  arm 

Of  Novelty,  her  fickle,  frail  support ; 

For  thou  art  meek  and  constant,  hating  change, 

And  finding  in  the  calm  of  truth-tried  love 

Joys  that  her  stormy  raptures  never  yield. 

Forsaking  thee,  what  shipwreck  have  we  made 

Of  honor,  dignity,  and  fair  renown  I 

Till  prostitution  elbows  us  aside 

In  all  our  crowded  streets ;  and  senates  seem 

Convened  for  purposes  of  empire  less 

Than  to  release  the  adulteress  from  her  bond." 

Thb  Task. 


178  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE   NECESSAEY   RELATION    OF   MONOGAMY 
TO  IMMORALITY  AND  CRIME. 

MARRIAGE   PREVENTS   CRIME. 

It  is  an  acknowledged  fact  that  crime  is  much 
more  prevalent  among  unmarried  persons  than 
among  the  married  ;  for  the  married  man's  family- 
becomes  a  pledge  to  society  for  his  good  behavior  : 
nor  can  the  married  woman  disgrace  herself  with- 
out disgracing  also  her  husband  and  her  children. 
That  system,  therefore,  which  provides  marriage 
for  the  greater  number  must  be  the  more  favora- 
ble to  the  promotion  of  public  virtue  and  morali- 
ty. It  has  already  been  demonstrated  that  polyg- 
amy provides  for  the  marriage  of  the  greater 
number  of  the  women  than  monogamy  can  ;  and 
it  will  not  be  difficult  to  prove  that  it  also  con- 
duces to  the  marriage  of  the  greater  number  of 
the  men  :  for  there  are  always  a  great  many  men 


^ 


OF  MARBIAGE.  179 

who  will  not  marry,  so  long  as  they  can  obtain 
the  gratification  of  their  propensities  without  mar- 
riage, which  they  can  do  as  long  as  there  are  so 
many  unmarried  women  as  there  must  be  where- 
ever  monogamy  prevails.  The  more  rich  and 
luxurious  monogamous  society  becomes,  the  more 
abandoned  women  there  will  be,  and  the  fewer 
marriages  and  the  more  crime.  But  let  the  sys- 
tem of  polygamy  be  adopted,  and  then  all  the 
women  will  be  wanted  for  wives ;  and,  as  they 
can  then  obtain  husbands  and  homes  of  their  own, 
but  few  will  prefer  to  follow  a  loose  and  vicious 
course  of  life.  And  then  the  men,  being  deprived 
of  the  opportunity  of  illicit  indulgence,  will  be 
compelled  to  marry  ;  and  their  marriage  will  refine 
and  humanize  them,  and  preserve  them  from 
many  of  those  vices  and  immoralities  to  which 
they  are  now  addicted.  There  are  many  crimes 
against  which  the  moral  sentiment  of  humanity 
revolts,  but  which  are  constantly  forced  upon  man- 
kind by  the  tyranny  of  monogamy,  and  which 
nothing  but  a  return  to  the  purer  system  of 
polygamy  can  restrain  and  prevent.  Among 
many  of  these  crimes  and  moral  evils  caused  or 


180  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

aggravated  by  monogamy,  and  which  would  be 
greatly  diminished  by  polygamy,  I  can  mention 
only  a  few. 

ADULTERY. 

The  violation  of  the  marriage-vow  constitutes  the 
crime  of  adultery,  —  a  crime  which  has  always 
been  regarded  with  the  greatest  detestation  among 
mankind,  and  which,  in  ancient  times,  was  punished 
with  death.  The  definition  of  adultery,  like  that  of 
marriage,  depends  upon  the  social  system  which  we 
adopt.  According  to  the  system  of  monogamy,  if 
any  married  person  has  sexual  intercourse  with  any 
one,  except  his  own  wife,  or  her  own  husband, 
then  he  or  she  is  guilty  of  adultery ;  but  if  the 
other  party  to  the  same  act  be  unmarried,  then 
that  unmarried  person  is  not  guilty  of  adultery, 
but  of  fornication  only.  That  is,  if  a  married 
man  has  intercourse  with  another  man's  wife,  then 
both  are  guilty  of  adultery ;  but  if  an  unmarried 
man  has  intercourse  with  a  married  woman,  then 
she  is  guilty  of  adultery,  but  he  is  not.  According 
to  the  system  of  polygamy,  if  any  man  has  inter- 
course with  anothet  man's  wife,  they  are  both 
guilty  of  adultery  ;  but  if  any  man  has  intercourse 


OF  MARRIAGE.  181 

with  an  unmarried  woman,  then  both  are  guilty 
of  fornication.  That  is,  it  is  the  married  or 
unmarried  state  of  the  woman,  and  not  of  the  man, 
that  determines  the  nature  of  the  crime ;  and  both 
parties  to  the  same  act  are  always  by  this  system 
held  guilty  of  the  same  offence.  A  careful  exam- 
ination of  the  laws  of  God  and  of  Nature  will 
enable  us  to  determine  which  of  these  definitions 
is  correct,  and  will  also  assist  us  in  the  determina- 
tion of  the  more  important  question.  Which  social 
system  is  right? 

1.  If  a  married  woman  admit  any  other  man 
to  her  bed  except  her  husband,  her  offspring  be- 
comes spurious,  or  at  least  uncertain,  and  her  hus- 
band may  have  another  man's  child  imposed  upon 
him  instead  of  his  own,  to  be  supported,  and  to 
inherit  his  estate  ;  but  no  such  uncertainty  occurs 
from  the  intercourse  of  one  man  with  several 
women. 

2.  If  a  wife  admit  the  embrace  of  another 
lover,  it  always  implies  an  alienation  of  her  affec- 
tions from  her  husband :  but  it  does  not  imply  an 
alienation  of  her  husband's  affections  to  take 
another  woman,  for  his  first  wife   is  not  always 


182  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

capable  of  fulfilling  his  conjugal  desires  ;    and  it 
is  sometimes  as  much  out  of  resrard  to  her  health 

o 

and  comfort  as  to  his  own  gratification,  that  he 
is  impelled  to  take  another. 

3.  If  a  woman  is  having  intercourse  with  sev- 
eral men  at  the  same  time,  she  is  living  in  un- 
cleanness,  and  in  constant  liability  of  inducing 
within  herself,  and  communicating  to  all  her  "* 
lovers,  the  most  loathsome  and  incurable  diseases  ; 
her  mind  and  heart  become  hopelessly  depraved, 
and  she  incurs  the  utter  loss  of  all  self-respect 
and  all  public  estimation :  but  no  such  diseases 
of  body  or  degradation  of  character  attach  to 
the  man  who  is  living  with  several  women.  .^ 

These  natural  laws  are  fully  ratified  and  con- 
firmed by  the  divine  law :  "  The  man  that  com- 
mitteth  adultery  with  another  man's  wife,  the 
adulterer  and  the  adulteress  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death."  "  But  if  a  man  entice  a  maid  that  is  not 
betrothed,  and  lie  with  her,  he  shall  surely  endow 
her  to  be  his  wife."  "  Because  he  hath  humbled 
her,  he  may  not  put  her  away  all  his  life."  "  And 
Nathan  said  to  David,  Thou  art  the  man.  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,  I  delivered  thee  out  of  the  hand  of 


OF  MARRIAGE.  183 

Saul,  and  I  gave  thee  thy  master's  house  and  thy 
master's  wives  into  thy  bosom ;  and  gave  thee 
the  house  of  Israel  and  of  Judah,  and  if  that  had 
been  too  little,  I  would  moreover  have  given  thee 
such  and  such  things.  Wherefore  hast  thou  de- 
spised the  commandment  of  the  Lord  to  do  evil  in 
his  sight,  and  hast  taken  the  wife  of  Uriah  the 
Hittite  to  be  thy  wife?  Now,  therefore,  the 
sword  shall  never  depart  from  thy  house,  because 
thou  hast  despised  me,  and  hast  taken  the  wife  of 
Uriah  the  Hittite  to  be  thy  wife."  *  It  seems 
unnecessary  to  cite  further  proofs.  The  entire 
Bible  confirms  the  definition  of  adultery  as  given 
by  the  system  of  polygamy. 

X  The  civil  laws  of  those  States  practising  monog- 
(  amy,  in  defining  adultery,  are  full  of  contradic- 
tions and  obscurities.  Their  theory  requires  that 
all  married  persons,  both  men  and  women,  who 
have  intercourse  with  any  others  except  their  own 
husbands  or  their  own  wives,  should  be  called 
adulterers,  and  considered  equally  criminal ;  but 
with  an  open  Bible  before  them,  and  living  Nature 

*  Ex.  xxii.  16;  Lev.  xx.  10;  Deut.  xxii.  22-29;  2  Sara  xii. 
7-10. 


184  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

all  around  them,  they  approach,  sometimes,  very 
near  to  the   distinctions   set   forth   in   polygamy. 
The  following  is  Dr.  Noah  Webster's  definition : 
^^  Adultery.  Violation  of  the  marriage-bed;  a  crime 
or  civil  injury  which  introduces,  or  may  introduce, 
into  a  family,  a  spurious  offspring.     In    common 
usage,  adultery  means  the    unfaithfulness    of  any 
married  person  to  the  marriage-bed.     By  the  laws\. 
of  Connecticut,  the  sexual  intercourse  of  any  man     \ 
with  a  married  woman  is  the  crime  of  adultery  in 
both ;  such  intercourse  of  a  married  man  with  an  \ 
unmarried   woman    is    fornication    in    both,    and 
adultery  of  the  man,  within  the  meaning  of  the 
law    respecting    divorce ;     but    not    a     felonious 
adultery  in    either,  or  the   crime   of    adultery  at 
common    law,    or   by   the    statute.      This    latter 
offence  is,  in  England,  proceeded  with  only  in  the    y^ 
ecclesiastical  courts." 

This  definition,  according  to  the  laws  of  Connec- 
ticut, is  the  very  one  which  polygamy  requires, 
with  the  exception  of  that  part  of  it  relating  to 
divorce ;  and  doubtless  the  God-fearing  legislators 
of  the  "  Land  of  Steady  Habits  "  who  framed  this 
statute  were  more  familiar  with  the   Bible    than 


OF  MARRIAGE.  185 

with  Roman  codes,  and,  besides,  had  very  little 
respect  for  the  authority  of  popes  or  councils.  In 
Massachusetts,  also,  the  statute  requires  that 
"  when  the  crime  is  committed  between  a  married 
woman  and  a  man  who  is  unmarried,  the  man 
shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  adultery."  Rev.  Stat, 
of  Mass.^  1860.  In  most  of  the  States  of  the 
American  Union,  however,  the  laws  define  adul- 
tery, according  to  common  usage,  as  the  theory  of 
monogamy  requires.  And  the  consequence  is,  that 
it  is  regarded  as  a  very  trifling  crime  by  the 
statutes  of  those  States  ;  the  common  penalty  being 
only  one  hundred  dollars'  fine,  or  six  months*  im- 
prisonment, even  this  light  penalty  being  rarely 
inflicted  ;  for  the  public  conscience  is  so  depraved 
by  the  false  definitions  of  monogamous  jurispru- 
dence in  respect  to  this  crime,  that  few  men  will 
prosecute  and  few  juries  will  conVict  either  an 
adulterer  or  an  adulteress. 


The  adulteress !  what  a  theme  for  angry  verse  ! 
What  provocation  to  the  indignant  heart 
That  feels  for  injured  love  !     But  I  disdain 
The  nauseous  task  to  paint  her  as  she  is,  — 


186  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHT 

Cruel,  abandoned,  glorying  in  her  shame  ! 

No :  let  her  pass,  and,  charioted  along 

In  guilty  splendor,  shake  the  public  ways  : 

The  frequency  of  crimes  has  washed  them  white." 

MURDER. 

It  is  a  notorious  fact,  that,  where  the  system  of 
monogamy  prevails,  the  most  common  cause  of 
murder  is  unhappy  marriages.  Husbands  murder 
their  wives,  and  wives  murder  their  husbands,  or 
incite  others  to  do  it,  almost  every  week.  When 
love  turns  to  hatred,  it  is  the  bitterest  kind  of 
hatred ;  and  when  people  hate  each  other,  their 
hatred  becomes  the  more  intense,  the  more  closely 
they  are  bound  together.  The  bonds  of  matrimony 
are  softer  than  silk,  and  sweeter  than  wreaths  of 
flowers,  so  long  as  mutual  love  and  mutual  confi- 
dence subsist ;  'but  when  these  are  banished  from 
the  domestic  altar,  and  their  places  usurped  by 
distrust  and  jealousy,  then  those  bonds  become 
heavier  than  iron  shackles,  and  more  corroding 
than  fetters  of  brass.  Under  such  circumstances, 
a  separation  of  some  kind  is  eagerly  desired.  This 
desire   is   spontaneous   and    instinctive ;    but   the 


OF  MARRIAGE.  187 


marriage-vow  has  been  so  solemnly  uttered  and 
recorded,  that  there  can  be  no  honorable  separation 
but  death.  Then  the  dreadful  crime  of  murder 
conceived  and  cherished  and  pondered  in  the  mind,< 
until  it  takes  complete  possession  of  it.  The  idea 
of  murder  is  begotten  between  the  desire  of  dis- 
solving the  marriage  and  the  desire  of  maintaining 
one's  public  honor.  And  both  desires  cannot  be 
gratified  in  any  other  way.  Divorce  is  dishonor- 
able. It  occasions  endless  talk  and  scandal,  and 
divulges  family  secrets.  It  makes  one  inevitably 
notorious.  It  often  involves  immense  expense. 
Persons,  therefore,  whose  desires  are  naturally  im- 
petuous, and  who  are  determined  to  obtain  a  speedy 
separation  from  their  hated  husbands  or  wives,  are 
peculiarly  liable  to  this  crime.  They  study  out  a 
plan  that  promises  complete  success.  They  are 
quite  sure  that  they  can  manage  to  murder  their 
companions  without  being  found  out.  At  all  events, 
they  often  do  murder  them,  and  run  the  risk  of 
being  found  out,  as  well  as  the  additional  risk  of 
divine  punishment  in  the  world  to  come.  Many 
cases  of  murder  for  this  cause  never  are  found  out ; 
but  enough  are  discovered  to  prove  that  the  dread- 


188  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

ful  crime  is  one  of  frequent  occurrence.  It  has 
been  brought  to  light  that  some  men  have  mur- 
dered a  number  of  wives,  and  some  women  a  num- 
ber of  husbands  in  succession.  The  nursery  story 
of  Bluebeard  may  be  a  horrible  fiction  ;  but  it  is  a 
fiction  founded  on  fact :  there  must  be  some  veri- 
similitude about  it,  or  it  could  never  have  interested 
so  many  generations  as  it  has.  Many  well-authen- 
ticated instances  of  wife-murder  have  occurred  for 
which  no  excuse  of  jealousy  or  domestic  infelicity 
can  be  urged,  and  which  can  only  be  accounted 
for  on  the  ground  of  men's  capricious  desires  and 
love  of  change.  The  history  of  Henry  VIII.,  king  \ 
of  England,  and  his  six  wives,  most  of  whom  were  / 
successively  murdered  to  make  room  for  their  sue-  /  • 
cessors,  is  an  obvious  and  an  authentic  instance.  / 
Now,  polygamy  furnishes  the  only  sufficient  pre- 
ventive of  this  horrible  crime  ;  for  almost  any  man 
would  sooner  support  an  extra  wife,  if  the  usages 
of  society  would  allow  it,  than  to  take  the  life  of 
his  present  wife,  at  the  imminent  risk  of  his  own. 
And  many  men  will  do  it,  and  are  now  doing  it, 
even  against  the  usages  of  society,  and  in  spite  of 
the  regulations  of  monogamy.     Thus  King  Henry 


-  OF  MARRIAGE.  189 

/ ALj  less  sanguinary,  or  more  independent  of  public  ^  J 
opinion,  than  his  brilliant  descendant  above  men- 
tioned,  still  permitted  his  queen  Eleanor  to  live,      I 
and  to  wear  the  crown,  though  he  often  preferred     / 
the  society  of  the  fair  Rosamond  to  hers,  and  often  ^ 
repaired   to   her  sylvan  bowers  at  Woodstock  to 
enjoy  it.     And  most  of  the  sovereigns  of  Europe 
have  followed  his  example ;  but,  like  Charles  II. 
and   the  four  Georges,  they  keep  their  mistresses 
nearer  court  than  at  Woodstock. 


DIVORCE. 

The  marriage-relation  is  designed  to  be  a  per- 
manent and  an  inseparable  one.  The  parties  take 
each  other  by  the  hand,  and  mutually  plight  their 
troth,  for  better  or  for  worse,  to  love  and  to  cher- 
ish, in  prosperity  and  in  adversity,  in  health  and 
in  sickness,  till  death  shall  part  them.  Such  a 
union  is  most  honorable :  it  is  most  admirable. 
But,  under  the  system  of  monogamy,  it  is  often  im- 
practicable. Although  the  laws  of  Clirist  allow  of 
but  one  cause  for  divorce,  —  the  unfaithfulness  of 
the  wife  to  the  marriage-vow,  —  and  although 
every  State  that  practises  monogamy  claims  to  be 


190  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

a  Christian  State,  yet  civil  laws  allow  of  divorce  for 
\  the  most  trifling  causes.  The  excuse  is  made,  that, 
when  married  persons  are  unhappy  in  their  mar- 
riage-relation, divorce  alone  can  prevent  neglect 
and  abuse  ;  and  it  may  prevent  murder.  So  they 
allow  them  to  commit  one  great  crime  to  prevent 
their  committing  another  and  a  greater.  This  is, 
of  course,  fallacious  reasoning.  But,  if  it  were  most 
exact  reasoning,  the  remedy  is  dangerous,  unneces- 
sary, and  directly  at  variance  with  the  laws  of 
God.  Polygamy  is  a  safer  and  a  surer  remedy  or 
rather  preventive  of  both  divorce  and  murder  than 
any  violation  of  divine  law  can  be.  The  laws  of 
God  and  of  Nature  always  harmonize  with  eac 
other ;  and  the  only  manner  in  which  we  can  per- 
fect our  civil  laws  is  to  bring  them  into  perfect 
accordance  with  the  former. 

Most  men  who  desire  a  divorce  would  prefer 
polygamy,  if  it  were  practicable  and  lawful.  A 
man  does  not  often  undertake  to  repudiate  his 
present  wife,  until  he  begins  to  desire  another. 
And  that  other  one  is  already  selected  and  already 
loved  ;  but  the  love  cannot  be  consummated.  And 
nothing  but  the  desire  of  consummating  this  love 


'> 


OF  MARRIAGE.  191 

carries  him  through  with  the  divorce.  For,  if  the 
law  of  the  land  favors  the  divorce,  there  still  re- 
mains the  law  of  God  to  oppose  it ;  and  hence 
divorces  are  usually  difficult,  expensive,  annoying, 
and  slow.  It  took  Henry  VIII.  five  years,  with 
all  his  wealth  and  power,  to  divorce  himself  from 
his  first  wife,  Catharine  of  Aragon,  in  favor  of 
Anne  Boleyn,  with  whom  he  was  desperately  in 
love  all  the  while.  If  she  had  yielded  to  his  solici- 
tations, and  granted  him  illicit  gratification,  it  is 
not  at  all  probable  that  he  would  ever  have  prose- 
cuted the  divorce  to  its  termination.  And  thus  is 
every  divorce  more  or  less  tedious,  and  it  ought  to 
be.  Christianity  forbids  it,  the  wife  resists  it,  chil- 
dren plead,  and  friends  expostulate  against  it,  the 
world  wonders  and  stares ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all 
opposition,  the  vehement  passions  of  men  often 
drive  them  through  it.  Yet  the  greatest  suffering 
of  all  is  that  of  the  man's  own  conscience,  who 
persists  in  it.  To  do  such  violence  to  the  most 
solemn  laws  of  God  and  the  most  honorable  senti- 
ments of  mankind  is  no  light  crime,  whatever  the^ 
laws  of  the  State  may  term  it.  Polygamy  fur- 
nishes the  only  preventive  of  this  great  social  evil. 


192  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

If  a  man  loves  another  woman,  and  is  resolved  to 
have  her,  let  him  take  her,  and  keep  her,  and  keep 
his  first  one  also.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  never 
would  have  divorced  Josephine,  had  polygamy 
been  deemed  lawful  and  proper.  Yet  no  man  ever 
had  a  fairer  pretext  for  divorce  upou  any  mere 
prudential  considerations  than  he  had.  Her  virtue 
was  unquestionable.  It  was  not  only  above  re- 
proach, it  was  above  suspicion.  But  all  hopes  of 
her  having  offspring  had  failed.  His  desire  for  an 
heir  was  most  intense,  most  natural,  and  most  com- 
mendable. It  seemed  to  be  all  that  was  wanting 
to  secure  the  stability  of  his  throne,  the  good  of  his 
people,  and  the  peace  of  the  world.  Yet,  accord- 
ing to  the  system  of  monogamy,  the  only  manner 
in  which  these  very  desirable  ends  could  be  at- 
tained was  by  the  divorce  of  Josephine,  by  whose 
alliance  he  had  been  brought  to  more  public  notice, 
and  been  greatly  assisted  in  his  successful  career, 
and  who  was  one  of  the  loveliest  and  noblest  women 
that  ever  wore  a  crown.  The  divorce  was  con- 
summated, the  reasons  for  it  were  publicly  an- 
nounced ;  but  the  moral  sense  of  the  world  was 
shocked,  and  Napoleon  was  at  once  pronounced  a 


OF  MARRIAGE.  193 

tyrant  and  a  monster.  And  this  act  is  still  held  by- 
many  to  be  the  turning-point  both  in  his  personal 
character  and  in  his  public  career.  Before  this, 
all  his  history  is  bright ;  after  it,  all  is  dark.  One 
cannot,  even  now,  after  so  long  a  time,  contemplate 
the  tears  of  Josephine  and  the  subsequent  disasters 
of  Napoleon,  without  cursing  the  narrow  bigotry 
of  monogamy,  and  wishing  that  the  golden  age  of 
polygamy  had  returned  before  his  day. 

At  the  court  of  David,  King  of  Israel,  even  the 
rape  and  the  incest  of  Tamar  were  not  so  unpar- 
donable as  her  abandonment.  Although  shocked 
and  indignant  at  the  brutal  violence  of  her  half- 
brother  Amnon,  yet  her  tenderness  could  not  deny 
some  pity  to  the  intensity  of  his  passion.  "  Nay, 
my  brother,  do  not  force  me,"  she  said.  "  Speak 
to  the  king;  for  he  will  not  withhold  me  from 
thee."  But  when  his  lust  had  been  sated,  and 
he  commanded  her  to  be  gone,  she  refused  to  go ; 
saying,  "  This  evil  in  sending  me  away  is  greater 
than  the  other."  *  Then  he  caused  her  to  be  put 
out  forcibly,  and  the  door  to  be  bolted.  It  was 
this  insulting  divorce  added  to  her  forcible  humilia- 


*  2  Sam.  xiii. 
13 


194  BISTORT  AND  PHILOSOPHT 

tion  that  broke  her  heart.  The  latter  she  might 
forgive,  the  former  she  could  not ;  and  she  rent 
her  purple  robes,  and  went  out  crying  with  her 
hand  upon  her  head.  It  was  this  cruel  repudia- 
tion that  whetted  the  dagger  of  Absalom  to  avenge 
her  wrongs,  and  it  was  this  that  fills  up  the  meas- 
ure of  Amnon*s  guilt  in  the  judgment  of  every 
honest  heart.  God  did  not  require  David  to  put 
away  Batheheba  after  he  had  once  ravished  her, 
and  would  not  have  permitted  him  to  do  so,  had 
he  desired  it,  although  he  had  obtained  her  by 
blood  and  fraud.  His  punishment  must  come  in 
some  other  manner.  Their  marriage,  once  con- 
summated by  cohabitation,  was  complete  and  in- 
dissoluble. How  differently  would  a  similar  case 
be  now  decided  by  the  ecclesiastical  courts  of 
modern  Europe !  Can  men's  judgment  be  more 
just  than  God's  ? 

PROCURING  ABORTION. 

The  murder  of  the  child  in  erribryo  is  a  crim 
prohibited  by  law,  and  most  repugnant  to  humani- 
ty.    Yet  it  is  one  which  the  system  of  monogamy 
is  obliojed  to  wink  at  and  tolerate.      This  horrid 


OF  MARRIAGE.  195 

crime  is  becoming  more  and  more  common  e very- 
year,  till  it  is  now  somewhat  fashionable,  espe- 
cially as  it  is  more  commonly  practised  by  fashion- 
able people.  Not  many  years  ago,  the  person 
who  dispensed  drugs  for  such  vile  purposes  was 
branded  as  a  villain,  or  looked  upon  as  a  hateful 
hag;  a  Locusta,  whose  fit  dwelling-place  was 
some  dark  cave  among  volcanic  mountains,  and 
whose  fit  companions  were  venomous  serpents  and 
wild  foxes :  but  it  is  now  currently  reported  that 
one  of  the  popular  compounders  of  these  death- 
dealing  drugs  is  deemed  worthy  of  the  honor  of 
knighthood,*  and  is  appointed  physician  extraor^ 
dinary  to  the  queen.  Almost  every  newspaper 
now  contains  a  well-displayed  advertisement,  ad- 
dressed "  to  the  ladies,"  setting  forth  the  power- 
ful properties  of  some  specific  for  "  removing 
obstructions,"  and  "  bringing  on  the  monthly 
periods,"  with  entire  certainty ;  and  although 
these  drugs  will  be  "  sure  to  cause  miscarriage," 
yet  they  are  at  the  same  time  so  "  mild  and  safe 
as  not  to  be  injurious  to  the  most  delicate  consti- 
tution."     Such  are  some  of  the    most   impudent 

*  Sir  ( ?)  James  Clarke. 


196  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

claims  of  the  modern  abortionist.  But  I  cannot 
go  on. 

For  full  details  I  beg  to  refer  my  readers  to  the 
public  journals  of  the  day. 

But  the  manufacturers  and  the  consumers  of 
drugs  for  these  abominable  practices  are  not  the 
only  ones  responsible  for  the  crime.  Monogamy 
is  responsible  for  it.  The  entire  social  system  is 
corrupt.  The  most  respectable  merchants  and 
apothecaries  deal  in  these  drugs,  the  most  respect- 
able journals  advertise  them,  everybody  reads 
about  them ;  yet  no  protesting  voice  is  raised, 
either  against  the  use  of  them  or  the  traffic  in 
them.  The  ministers  of  religion,  the  proper 
censors  of  the  public  morals,  are  silent :  the 
subject  is  too  indelicate  for  them  to  allude  to.  The 
police-magistrates  and  other  officers  of  the  law- 
make  no  effort  to  bring  the  guilty  parties  to  jus- 
tice, except  in  the  most  shocking  and  notorious 
instances,  where  the  life  of  the  mother  is  taken,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  child. 

Intelligent  and  respectable  physicians,  who  have 
the  best  opportunities  of  knowing,  state  that  this 
vice  is  now  practised  more  commonly  by  married 


OF  MARRIAGE.  197 

women  than  by  the  unmarried ;  and  it  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  account  for  it.  Under  the  system  of 
monogamy,  the  wife  attempts  too  much,  and  phys- 
ical impossibilities  are  expected  and  required  of ^ 
her.  She  alone  undertakes  to  supply  all  her  hus- 
band's conjugal  wants,  and  to  gratify  all  his 
amorous  desires  ;  and  she  is  quite  conscious  that 
even  in  the  bloom  of  her  youth,  in  perfect  health, 
and  in  the  height  of  her  charms,  she  is  scarcely 
capable  of  doing  it :  and  she  dreads  to  have  any 
thing  happen  to  her  to  make  her  less  capable. 
Especially  if  she  has  already  borne  one  child, 
and  has  passed  through  the  long  period  of  lactation, 
she  remembers  its  effect  upon  herself  and  upon 
her  husband  with  alarm.  She  fancies  herself  in 
danger  of  losing  her  hold  upon  his  affections, 
which  she  wishes  to  retain,  of  course,  as  long  as 
possible.  She  therefore  takes  drugs  to  prevent 
fruitfulness,  and  to  preserve  her  form  and  beauty, 
in  order  to  prevent  her  husband's  affections  being 
lavished  upon  others. 

And  if  the  system  of  monogamy  be  right,  then 
this  motive  is  commendable,  and  the  reasoning 
based  upon  it  is  entirely  valid.     No   wife   can  be 


198  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

blamed  for  wishing  to  prevent  her  husband   from 
forming  illicit  attachments,  and  thus  bringing  dis- 
honor upon  himself  and  all  his  house ;  and  the 
f         only  means  at  her  command  for  preventing  it  is 
\        to  concentrate  all  his  affections  upon  herself. 

But  polygamy  is  capable  of  suppressing  this 
vice,  or,  at  least,  of  greatly  diminishing  it,  by 
removing  its  most  powerful  motives.  Under  the 
system  of  polygamy,  the  burdens  as  well  as  the 
privileges  of  the  women  are  more  equally  distrib- 
uted. No  woman  is  required  or  expected  to  be 
always  prepared  for  her  husband's  embraces,  nor 
does  she  claim  any  more  than  she  is  able  to 
receive,  or  than  he  is  voluntarily  inclined  to  be- 
stow. If  she  is  full  of  life,  and  in  vigorous 
health,  and  is  capable  of  fulfilling  her  conjugal 
duties  alone,  it  is  well :  her  husband  is  a  happy 
man.  But,  if  she  is  not  able,  it  is  still  well.  Her 
husband  need  not  be  unhappy ;  for  he  can  espouse 
another,  without  reproach  to  her  or  dishonor  to 
.    himself. 


/ 


OF  MARRIAGE.  199 

FECUNDITY     OUGHT     TO     BE     PROMOTED,    NOT 
DESTROYED. 

The  laws  of  God  and  of  Nature  concur  in 
bearing  unqualified  testimony  to  the  desirableness 
of  offspring.  It  is  the  proper  fruit  of  marriage, 
of  which  love  is  the  blossom.  The  blossom 
yields  a  delicious  but  an  evanescent  pleasure ; 
but  the  fruit,  after  diligent  culture  and  careful 
preservation,  is  a  source  of  perpetual  delight  and 
honor.  "  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  replenish 
the  earth  and  subdue  it,"  constitutes  the  most  im- 
portant part  of  the  divine  blessing  pronounced 
upon  the  first  married  couple,  —  a  benediction  re- 
peated, in  substance,  upon  the  occasion  of  every 
subsequent  marriage  the  particulars  of  which  are 
recorded  in  the  Holy  Bible.  When  the  parents  of 
Rebecca  sent  her  away  to  become  the  wife  of 
Isaac,  they  blessed  her,  and  said,  ^'  Be  thou  the 
mother  of  thousands  of  millions ; "  and  when 
Boaz  espoused  Ruth  the  Moabitess,  the  people  that 
were  in  the  gate,  and  the  elders,  said,  "  The  Lord 
make  the  woman  that  is  come  into  thy  house,  like 
Rachel  and  Leah,  which  two  did  build  the  house 


200  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

of  Israel.'*  "  Lo,  children  are  a  heritage  of  the 
Lord,  and  the  fruit  of  the  womb  is  his  reward. 
As  arrows  are  in  the  hand  of  a  mighty  man,  so 
are  the  children  of  the  youth.  Happy  is  the  man 
that  hath  his  quiver  full  of  them."  "  Thy  wife 
shall  be  as  a  fruitful  vine  by  the  sides  of  thy 
house,  thy  children  like  olive-plants  round  about 
thy  table.  Behold  that  thus  shall  the  man  be 
blessed  that  feareth  the  Lord."  * 

As  fruitfulness,  on  the  one  hand,  is  always  de- 
clared to  be  a  blessing,  in  the  Bible,  so  barrenness, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  declared  to  be  a  curse.  The 
most  affecting  and  the  most  memorable  prayers 
of  females  recorded  therein  are  those  which  beg 
for  offspring  ;  and  the  most  grateful  thanksgivings 
are  those  for  children  borne  by  them.  But  the 
unnatural  and  unholy  system  of  monogamy  which 
now  prevails  has  so  strangely  perverted  our  desires, 
that  it  seems  to  change  the  divine  blessing  into  a 
curse,  and  the  curse  into  a  blessing.  If  women 
would  now  dare  to  pray  for  what  they  wish,  they 
would  pray  for  barrenness,  instead  of  fruitfulness. 
(^  Now,  there  must  be  something  radically  wrong  in 

*  Ps.  cxxvii.,  cxxviii. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  201 

a  social  system  which  thus  presumes  to  reverse  the 
course  of  Nature,  and  to  contradict  the  divine 
assurances  of  blessing  and  of  cursing ;  and  which 
has  so  fatally  and  deeply  poisoned  the  mysterious 
springs  of  life,  and  polluted  the  most  inviolable 
sanctuaries  of  female  purity  and  maternal  love. 

"  Our  Maker  bids  increase :  who  bids  abstain, 
But  our  destroyer,  foe  to  God  and  man  'i " 

I  doubt  whether  there  can  be  any  form  of  licen- 
tiousness more  abhorrent  to  the  laws  of  God  and 
of  Nature  than  this  ''  Murder  of  the  Innocents." 
Even  fornication  cannot  be  so  great  a  sin.     The 
unmarried  woman  who  has  a  child  in  the  natural 
way,  and  who  bestows  upon  it  a  mother's  love  and 
a  mother's  care,  cannot  thereby  become  so  guilty 
as  the  married  woman  who  wilfully  destroys  her 
offspring,  or  who  prevents  her  fruitfulness.     There 
is  great  danger  lest  the  general  smattering  of  medi- 
cal knowledge  among  us  may  do  more  harm  than 
/  good.     There  is,   alas !    a  positive  certainty  that 
/       presumptuous  quacks,  who  know  only  enough  of 
I        Nature  to  have  lost  their  reverence  for  her  laws, 


) 


202  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

and  are  poisoning  the  best  blood  in  our  land. 
These  women,  like  our  common  mother  Eve,  from 
unholy  and  intensely  selfish  motives,  prompted  and 
countenanced  by  our  system  of  monogamy,  are 
plucking  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knov^^ledge  of  good 
and  evil,  and  intermeddling  with  those  functions 
of  Nature  which  ought  to  be  let  alone.  No  honor- 
able physician,  who  is  master  of  his  profession, 
will  degrade  that  profession  so  much  as  to  descend 
to  such  vile  practice.  His  business  is  not  to  destroy 
life,  but  to  save  it.  He,  at  least,  has  learned  the 
most  profound  respect  for  the  laws  of  our  being,    j 

"  A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing ; 
Drink  deep,  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  Spring. 
There  shallow  draughts  intoxicate  the  brain ; 
V     But  drinking  largely  sobers  us  again." 

We  had  better  know  nothing  of  the  laws  of 
_gestation  than  to  know  only  enough  to  evade  or 
violate  them  ;  for  they  cannot  be  violated  with  im- 
punity. The  time  will  come  when  the  young  wife 
who  now  destroys  her  unborn  offspring,  or  who 
otherwise  wilfully  and  wickedly  tampers  with  her 
reproductive  powers,  will  surely  mourn  their  loss, 


OF  MARRIAGE.  203 

and  will  mourn  as  one  that  cannot  be  comforted. 
Like  Each  el,  she  will  beg  and  pray  for  fruitfulness, 
and  say,  "  Oh  !  give  me  children,  or  else  I  die  ;  " 
but,  not  like  Rachel,  she  will  beg  and  pray  in  vain. 
Those  delicate  organs  once  weakened  by  violent  or 
unnatural  means  rarely  regain  their  normal  con- 
dition, and  one  voluntary  abortion  may  be  followed 
by  many  involuntary  miscarriages.  She  loses  all, 
and  she  is  guilty  of  all ;  and  some  day  she  will 
surely  feel  both  her  loss  and  her  guilt,  till  it  be- 
comes, like  the  punishment  of  the  first  murderer,  a 
burden  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  Never  can  she 
know  by  blissful  experience  the  sweetness  of  a 
mother's  love  ;  that  pure  and  fond  and  tender  and 
changeless  affection,  which  so  inspires  and  ennobles 
the  female  character.  Never  can  she  become  quite 
free  from  the  jealous  suspicions  of  her  husband, 
who,  against  his  will  and  all  his  better  judgment, 
is  a  perpetual  prey  to  the  green-eyed  demon. 
Never  can  the  spacious  halls  and  gloomy  apart- 
ments of  their  solitary  home  resound  with  the  in- 
nocent glee  of  their  children's  voices  ;  no  baby  in 
the  cradle ;  no  "  daughter  singing  in  the  village 
choir "  or  the  Sunday-school  concert ;    no  son   to 


y 


204  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

graduate  from  school  or  college,  or  to  inherit  and 
transmit  to  future  generations  the  family  name  and 
wealth  and  honors. 

This  is  no  fancy  sketch  nor  far-fetched  represen- 
tation, but  is  a  faithful  protraiture  of  many  of  our 
New-England  families.  The  curse  of  God  is  al- 
ready upon  us,  and  our  native  population  is  even 
now  giving  way  to  the  more  prolific  races  oif  Eng- 
lish, Celts,  and  Germans.  God  gives  the  land  to 
those  who  obey  his  marriage-laws  to  "be  fruitful, 
and  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue 
it."  As  the  Israelites  drove  out  the  ancient  Ca- 
naanites  who  made  their  children  pass  through  to 
.Moloch,  and  as  they  took  possession  of  their  fruit- 
ful fields  and  vineyards,  already  planted,  and  of 
their  towns  and  cities,  already  built ;  so  these 
poorer,  more  natural  and  less  artificial  immigrants 
are  dispossessing  us.  I  quote  once  more  from  the 
Massachusetts  Registration  Report  for  1866,  page 
18. 

BIRTH-RATE   IN   MASSACHUSETTS. 

"  In  England,  during  the  twenty-six  years  1838- 
1863,  with  a  population  of  about  eighteen  millions, 
the  average  birth-rate  was   3.33    per  cent.     In 


OF  MARRIAGE.  205 

Massachusetts,  it  has  never  been  so  high.  In  the 
seven  years  1852-1858,  it  was  2.90.  In  the  five 
years  immediately  preceding  the  war,  1856-1860, 
it  was  2.85.  During  the  four  years  of  war,  1862- 
1865,  the  birth-rate  was  2.46.  We  find  it  now 
rising,  not  to  the  old  standard  of  2.85  or  2.90,  but 
to  2.69." 

Page  28  reads  as  follows,  — 

*'  The  foreign-born  population  of  Massachusetts, 
by  the  census  of  1865,  was  265,486,  the  American 
population  999,976,  and  the  population  of  un- 
known nativity  1,569.  The  last  it  is  not  easy  to 
divide  ;  it  seems  nearer  the  probable  truth  to  divide 
them  equally.  We  have,  then,  1,000,761  Ameri- 
cans, and  266,270  foreigners.  And  they  produced 
in  1866,  —  the  Americans  16,555  children,  the 
foreigners  17,530  children ;  that  is  to  say,  a  child 
was  born  to  every  60^*^^^  Americans,  and  to  every 
15J^  foreigners  ;  the  latter  class  being  four  times 
as  productive  as  the  former." 

The  birth-rate,  therefore,  of  the  Americans,  of 
Massachusetts  for  the  year  1866  was  only  1.65 
per  cent ;  while  that  of  the  foreign  population 
was  6.59  per  cent.  At  this  rate,  not  many  gener- 
ations will  be  required  for  them  to  dispossess  us. 


/ 


206  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  the  satisfactory  analysis 
and  comparison  of  the  two  marriage-systems  to 
go  on,  to  any  greater  length,  with  this  painful  dis- 
section of  vice,  or  to  array  any  further  statistical  \ 
proofs  in  confirmation  of  the  inherent  licentious- ^^ 
v^ness  of  monogamy.  It  would  be  easy  to  show 
that  the  galling  bondage  of  restricted  marriage  has 
had,  and  is  now  having,  a  similar  effect  upon  the 
great  social  evils  of  insanity,  suicide,  and  self- 
pollution,  which  it  has  upon  those  other  forms  of 
vice  which  have  been  analyzed  above,  and  to 
prove  that  polygamy  would  tend  to  mitigate  them 
also.  If  these  hints  of  mine  are  seized  upon  and 
properly  developed  by  some  more  capable  writer, 
and  so  clearly  and  happily  set  forth  as  to  lead  to  a 
practical  reform,  it  will  be  honor  enough  for  me  to 
have  indicated  its  necessity  and  demonstrated  its 
possibility. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  207 


CHAPTER    IX. 

OBJECTIONS  TO  POLYGAMY  ANSWERED. 

A  FEW  pages  will  now  be  devoted  to  a  consider- 
ation of  the  objections  which  have  been  urged 
against  the  system  of  polygamy.  And  it  may  be 
proper  to  say,  that  if  there  should  be  any  objec- 
tions to  it  which  are  not  here  answered  to  every 
one's  satisfaction,  yet  the  superiority  of  this  sys- 
tem is  still  maintained  and  proven,  as  long  as 
the  previous  demonstrations  remain  valid ;  the 
objections  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  It  is 
often  the  case  that  a  proposition  may  be  true,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  may  not  be  possible  to  answer 
all  the  objections  to  it.  There  are  unanswerable 
objections  to  a  democratic  or  popular  form  of 
government ;  and  yet  for  some  nations,  such  a 
form  of  government  may,  on  the  whole,  be  the  best 
one. 


208  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

DOES  POLYGAMY  CAUSE  JEALOUSY? 

It  has  been  objected  that  polygamy  cannot  be 
reasonable  or  right,  since  it  causes  jealousy 
among  the  different  women  in  the  same  family. 
But  it  cannot  be  proved  that  jealousy  is  confined  to 
ny  particular  social  system :  it  is,  unfortunately, 
too  common  to  every  system.  It  is  inherent  in 
human  nature,  and  must  be  regarded  as  one  of 
its  inseparable  infirmities.  Yet,  so  far  from  being 
most  violent  under  the  system  of  polygamy,  the 
opposite  is  the  fact ;  for  it  is  always  most  violent 
when  secret  intrigue  is  carried  on,  and  when  the 
dreaded  rival  does  not  sustain  an  open  and  an  ac- 
knowledged relation  to  the  husband,  but  when  the 
tenderness  between  him  and  that  rival,  whether 
real  or  suspected,  is  only  secretly  indulged :  so 
that  monogamy  really  furnishes  more  occasion  for 
the  exercise  of  this  cruel  passion  than  polygamy. 

/  In  the  latter  system,  the  claims  of  the  different 
/  women   are    acknowledged   and    understood ;    the 

■parties  all  stand  in  well-defined  relations  to  each 
other,  and  violent  jealousy,  under  such  circum- 
stances, must  be  comparatively  rare. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  209 

IS  POLYGAMY  DEGRADING   TO   WOMEN? 

It  has  also  been   objected,  that   polygamy  can-^ 
not  be  reasonable  and  right,  since   it  places  men      I 
and  women  on  terms  of  social  inequality  ;  it  exalts 
man,  and  degrades  woman ;  it  makes  her  depend- 
ent on  his  will ;  it  demands  of  her  her  undivided 
love  and  fidelity  towards  him,  while  he  is  permit- 
ted to  lavish  his   affections  upon   as  many  as  ho  . 
may  please.     But  all  this  is  not  degrading  to  her>_^_  \ 
It  is  the  only  thing  that  saves  her  from   degrada- 
tion.    The  experience  of  every  age  and  of  every 
community  has  proved  that  many  men  cannot  and 
will    not    content    themselves   with    one  woman. 
There  must  be  polygamy,  or  else  there   must  be 
prostitution ;    and  prostitution   is  wickedness,  and 
wickedness  4s  degradation. 

/  Nor  is  there  any  thing  degrading  in  woman's 
/  dependence  upon  man.  This  dependence  is  nat- 
ural, and  honorable  to  her.  It  is  the  very  position 
which  she  herself  voluntarily  and  instinctively 
assumes  towards  him.  The  entire  code  of  polite, 
social  intercourse  between  the  two  sexes  is  founded 
on  this  principle  of  her  nature.  Not  only  in 
14 


210  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

times  of  real  danger,  but  at  all  times,  she  loves  to 
lean  upon  the  strong,  brave  arm  of  man,  and  / 
Vi^illingly  confesses  her  own  timidity  and  weakness. 
And  these  qualities  are  so  far  from  degrading  her, 
that  they  only  render  her  the  more  attractive  and 
lovely.  The  manly  gallant  is  as  ready  to  afford 
assistance  as  she  is  to  accept  it.  In  riding,  in 
walking,  in  dancing,  in  sailing,  in  bathing,  in 
the  public  assembly,  in  the  social  gathering,  and 
everywhere  where  it  is  possible  to  receive  atten- 
tion and  accept  assistance  and  protection,  it  is 
equally  pleasing  and  ennobling  for  her  to  receive, 
and  for  him  to  bestow  them. 

woman's   rights. 

,  They  are  her  rights,  —  her  woman's  rights.  1/ 
believe  in  woman's  rights,  and  I  believe  that 
polygamy  is  the  system  that  can  best  assure  them 
to  her ;  for,  as  it  is  a  mathematical  certainty  that 
there  are  more  women  than  men  in  the  world, 
some  men  must  assume  the  protection  of  more 
than  one  woman  each,  or  some  women  must  be 
deprived  of  their  rights.  The  most  sacred  and  the 
most  precious  of  all  her  rights  are  her  rights  to  a 


/; 

// 


OF  MARRIAGE.  211 

husband  and  a  home ;  and  it  is  no  more  a  degra- 
dation to  her  to  share  that  home  and  that  husband 
with  another  woman  than  it  is  to  share  other 
benefits  and  other  attentions  from  the  same  man, 
in  common  with  other  women.  No  woman  con- 
siders herself  degraded  to  walk  abroad  with  her 
hand  upon  a  man's  arm  while  another  woman  has  \ 
her  hand  upon  the  other  arm ;  thus  they  often  ;  j 
appear  in  public,  at  balls  and  concerts  and  lectures 
and  churches.  For  the  time  being,  they  are  both 
willingly  dependent  upon  his  protection  and  his 
bounty  ;  and  he  is  also  dependent  upon  each  of 
them  for  the  benefits  of  their  companionship  and 
the  charms  of  their  society.  He  could  not  so 
fully  enjoy  those  entertainments  without  them. 
For  example,  there  are  two  female  friends  residing  X 
together,  and  mutually  dependent  upon  each  other  ' 
for  many  of  their  social  enjoyments,  and  for 
much  of  their  intellectual  and  moral  culture.  A 
worthy  young  man  of  their  acquaintance  calls 
upon  them  frequently,  and  admires  them  both ; 
and  they  enjoy  his  visits,  for  neither  of  them  have 
any  other  male  associate.  At  length  he  invites 
them  both  to  a  public  entertainment.     Neither  of 


/ 


212  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

them  would  be  willing  to  leave  her  friend,  and  go 
with   him   alone ;    nor    could   he  well   endure   the     \ 
thought   of    enjoying   himself    abroad   with    one,     / 
while  the  other  would  be  deserted  and  neglected  j 
at  home,  —  the  other  who  would  enjoy  the  enter-  i 
tainment  so  much,  and  whose  enjoyment  would  so  I 
much  enhance  theirs.     Now,  if   this  triple    com-  \ 
panionship   shall   ripen   into    friendship,    and   the    \ 
friendship  into  lovcf  and  the  love  shall  result  in  a    I 
triple  marriage,  where  is  the  degradation  ?    Would 
it   not  be   still   more    heartless    to    desert   either 
of  the  friends  now,  when  each  heart  is  thrilling 
with   the   harmonious  music   of  the   triple  love? 
Let  the  words  of  divine  wisdom  answer,  - — 

"  Two  are  better  than  one,  .  .  .  and  a  three-    | 
fold  cord  is  not  quickly  broken." 

There  is  a  want  in  the  female  nature  which 
impels  her  to  seek  and  to  appreciate  the  society 
of  a  male  friend,  which  no  number  of  associates 
of  her  own  sex  can  fully  satisfy,  I  have  stood  by 
the  gates  of  the  cotton-mill,  and  seen  the  multitudes 
of  female  operatives  stream  out  of  an  evening,  and 
I  marked  their  lonesome  appearance  as  they  re- 
paired to  their  respective  homes.     Homes,  did   I 


OF  MARRIAGE.  213 

say?  Ah !  any  thing  but  homes,  —  their  boarding- 
houses.  There  I  have  seen  them  sit  down,  by 
scores,  to  the  dinner-table,  and  eat  their  dinners 
in  the  utmost  silence,  as  if  each  one  was  entirely 
isolated  from  all  social  and  agreeable  companion- 
ship. Oh,  what  loneliness !  how  hard !.  how  bit- 
ter !  Yet  many  of  them  were  radiant  with  the 
charms  of  womanhood,  and  each  one  capable  of 
adorning  and  blessing  a  home,  but  which  few  of 
them  will  ever  enjoy;  for  they  are  not  only  the 

,  unwilling   victims  of    poverty   and   toil,    but   the 
^^;!^  "willing  votaries  of  fashion,  and  the   unconscious 

\  slaves  of  monogamy. 

MASCULINE   POWER  AND    FEMININE   COMPLAISANCE. 

Those  qualities  of  mind  and  person  which  impel 
a  woman  to  seek  the  protection  of  the  stronger  sex, 
arising  from  her  natural  weakness  and  timidity, 
are  really  those  very  qualities  which  inspire  the 
deepest  admiration  ;  yet,  should  a  man  happen  to 
display  these  feminine  qualities,  they  only  render 
him  supremely  contemptible.  A  man  must  be  J 
strong,  self-reliant,  and  courageous.  No  woman 
can  devotedly  love  a  man,  unless  she  sees,  or  thinks 


7 


214  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

she  sees,  in  him  a  power  of  mind  or  of  body,  or  of 
both,  which  Nature  has  denied  to  her.  It  is  this 
power  which  she  intuitively  admires  and  venerates 
and  worships,  even  though  its  exercise  over  her 
may  be  arbitrary  and  tyrannical.  The  Sabine  ma-^ 
trons  loved  their  Roman  lords  none  the  less  be- 
cause they  had  seized  them  with  the  strong  hand  ; 
and  a  woman  is  always  and  everywhere  more 
ready  to  forgive  the  too  great  ardor  and  boldness 
of  a  lover  than  his  unmanly  timidity  and  shame. 
For  a  wife  to  look  up  to  her  husband  for  authority 
and  guidance  is  as  natural  as  to  look  to  him  for 
protection  from  danger ;  and  this  is  as  natural  as 
breathing.  It  is  therefore  true,  though  it  may 
seem  hard  to  some  to  admit  it,  that  it  is  his  right 
and  duty  to  exercise  authority,  and  her  right  and 
privilege  to  practise  coniplaisance  and  submission. 

"  Whence  true  authority  in  man ;  though  both 
Not  equal,  as  their  sex  not  equal  seemed ; 
For  contemplation  he,  and  valor  formed ; 
Tor  softness  she,  and  sweet  attractive  grace ; 
He  for  God  only,  she  for  God  in  him. 
His  fair  large  front  and  eye  sublime  declared 
Absolute  rule ;  and  hyacinthine  locks 


/: 


OF  MARRIAGE.  215 

Hound  from  his  parted  forelock  manly  hung 
Clustering,  but  not  beneath  his  shoulders  broad ; 
She,  as  a  veil,  down  to  the  slender  waist 
Her  unadorned  golden  tresses  wore, 
Dishevelled,  but  in  wanton  ringlets  waved, 
As  the  vine  curls  her  tendrils,  which  implied 
Subjection,  but  required  with  gentle  sway,"  &c. 

Paradise  Lost,  Book  iv. 


Yet  while  God  and  Nature  have  constituted  man 
the  superior  to  woman  in  strength  and  courage  and 
authority,  these  principles  do  not  render  her  rela- 
tion to  man  one  of  degradation  or  even  of  generalV 
inferiority ;  for  there  are  many  other  and  no  less  */ 
admirable  qualities  in  which  she  surpasses  him. 
Her  moral  and  religious  sentinients  are  more  sus- 
ceptible, and  her  intellectual  perceptions  are  truer 
and  keener  in  respect  to  those  matters  requiring  . 
delicacy  of  taste  and  refinement  of  mind.  Her 
humane  sympathies  are  also  stronger ;  she  is 
sooner  moved  by  the  sentiments  of  compassion, 
benevolence,  and  charity.  Blessings  on  her  gentle 
heart !  What  a  dreary  world  would  this  be  with- 
out woman  !  And  it  is  only  polygamy  that  appre- 
ciates and  appropriates  her.  Monogamy  neglects 
her,  spurns  her,  corrupts  her,  and  degrades  her. 


ntle  \ 
■ith-    J 


216  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

IP  A  MAN  MAY  HAVE  A  PLURALITY  OF  WIVES,  WHY 
MAY  NOT  A  WOMAN  HAVE  A  PLURALITY  OP  HUS- 
BANDS? 

Because  a  woman's  heart  is  so  constituted,  that 
it  is  impossible  for  her  to  cherish  a  sincere  love  for 
more  than  one  husband  at  the  same  time.     It  is 

Leven  difficult  for  her  to  believe  that  a  man  can 
cherish  a  sincere  and  honest  love  for  more  than  one 
woman  at  the  same  time.  It  is  dffiicult  for  her  to 
believe  it ;  for  she  cannot  comprehend  it.    Her  own 

instincts  revolt  against  the  thought  of  a  plurality  of 

husbands,  and,  judging  his  feeling  by  her  own,  she 
does  not  see  how  a  man  can  want,  or  at  least  can 
truly  love,  a  plurality  of  wives.  But,  as  this  point 
involves  a  constitutional  difference  of  sex,  it  is  one 
in  which  we  must  be  aware  that  our  feelings  can- 
not guide  us.  A  man  can  never  know  the  infinite  "N 
-^"""tenderness  and  the  infinite  patience  of  a  mother's  / 
"^,  love,  except  imperfectly,  by  reason  and  observa- 
tion. His  experience  does  not  teach  him.  His 
paternal  love  does  not  exactly  resemble  it.  So  a 
woman  can  never  know  the  purity  and  sincerity  of 
a  man's  conjugal  love  for  a  plurality  of  wives,  ex- 


OF  MARRIAGE.  217 

cept  by  similar  observation  and  reason.     Her  con-   \ 
jugal  love  is  unlike 'it.     Her  love  for  one  man 
exhausts  and  absorbs  her  whole  conjugal  nature : 
there  is  no  room  for  more.     And  if  she  ever  re- 
ceives the  truth  that  his  nature  is  capable  of  a 
plural  love,  she  must  attain  it  by  the  use  of  her     \ 
reason,  or  admit  it  upon  the  testimony  of  honest  J 
'\   men. 

THE   SUN  AND  TME   PLANETS  ;     OR  MARRIAGE   LIKE 
GRAVITATION. 

It  would  be  as  impossible  and  as  unnatural  for  a 
pure-minded,  virtuous  woman  to  have  more  than 
one  husband,  as  for  the  earth  to  have  more  than  one 
sun ;  but  it  is  not  unnatural  nor  impossible  for  a 
pure  and  noble-minded  man  to  cherish  the  most  de- 
voted love  for  several  wives  at  the  same  time  :  it  is  as 
natural  for  him  as  it  is  for  the  sun  to  have  several  ^"^^ 
planets  at  the  same  time,  each  one  dependent  on  y 
him,  and  each  one  harmonious  in  her  own  sphere. 
To  each  planet  the  sun  yields  all  the  light  and  heat 
which  she  is  capable  of  receiving,  or  which  she 
would  be  capable  of  receiving,  were  she  the  only 
planet  in  the  sky.     Each  planet  attracts  the  sun  to 


f 


218  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

the  utmost  of  her  weight,  —  the  exhaustion  of  her 
power  ;  and  the  sun  returns  her  attraction  to  an  ex- 
actly equal  degree,  and  no  more.  Not  one  planet  nor 
two,  nor  all  combined,  are  able  to  exhaust  his 
power,  or  move  him  from  his  sphere.  One  more 
illustration :  if  a  strong  man  holds  one  end  of  a 
cord,  and  a  little  child  the  other,  and  they  pull  to- 
wards each  other,  the  tension  of  the  cord  is  meas- 
ured by  the  strength  of  the  child,  and  not  by  that 
of  the  man.  The  same  degree  of  power  is  felt  at 
each  end  of  the  cord.  The  strength  of  the  child  is 
exhausted,  that  of  the  man  is  not.  He  can  draw 
several  children  to  him,  sooner  than  they  could 
unitedly  draw  him  to  them.  A  similar  relation 
exists,  naturally,  between  the  male  and  the  female. 
He  is  the  sun,  they  are  the  planets.  He  is 
strong,  they  are  weak.  Let  us  not  find  fault 
with  the  ordinances  of  God,  nor  attempt  to  resist 
his  will. 

"  MASCULINE   RESPONSIBILITY  AND   CARE. 

The  responsibilities  of  the  man  are  in  propor- 
tion to  his  strength  and  authority.  He  must 
assume  the  care  and  provide  for  the  support   of 


OF  MARRIAGE.  219 

the  family ;  and  his  female  companions  will  sub- 
mit to  this  authority,  if  they  are  wise  and  prudent, 
with  all  the  grace  and  gentleness  which  distin 
guish  their  sex. 

"  Thy  husband  is  thy  lord,  thy  life,  thy  keeper. 
Thy  head,  thy  sovereign ;  one  that  cares  for  thee 
And  for  thy  maintenance ;  commits  his  body 
To  painful  labor,  both  by  sea  and  land ; 
To  watch  the  night  in  storms,  the  day  in  cold, 
While  thou  liest  warm  at  home,  secure  and  safe ; 
And  craves  no  other  tribute  at  thy  hands. 
But  love,  fair  looks,  and  true  obedience,  — 
Too  little  payment  for  so  great  a  debt. 
Such  duty  as  the  subject  owes  the  prince. 
Even  such  a  woman  oweth  to  her  husband ; 
And  when  she's  froward,  peevish,  sullen,  sour. 
And  not  obedient  to  his  honest  will. 
What  is  she  but  a  foul  contending  rebel. 
And  graceless  traitor  to  her  loving  lord  ? 
I  am  ashamed  that  women  are  so  simple 
To  offer  war  where  they  should  kneel  for  peace ; 
Or  seek  for  rule,  supremacy,  and  sway, 
When  they  are  bound  to  serve,  love,  and  obey. 
Why  are  our  bodies  soft  and  weak  and  smooth. 
Unapt  to  toil  and  trouble  in  the  world ; 
But  that  our  soft  conditions  and  our  hearts 
Should  well  agree  with  our  external  parts  1  " 

Taming  the  Shrew  act  v.  scene  ii. 


220  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

The  capacity  of  a  man  to  attract  and  support 
several  women  must  depend  upon  the  amount  of  his 
talent,  his  fortune,  and  his  benevolence,  as  well  as 
upon  his  physical  strength  and  vitality.  There  are 
some  men  who  are  scarcely  able  to  attract  the  love 
and  provide  for  the  support  of  one  woman  ;  others 
are  well  able,  if  they  were  willing,  to  maintain 
several  wives,  but  they  are  too  penurious  and  too 
selfish  to  attempt  it :  and  such  men  do  not  deserve 
the  love  of  one.  But  there  are  others  who  are  both 
able  and  willing,  and  who  can  as  well  love  and  pro- 
vide for  several  as  for  one,  and  even  better  ;  for,  if 
a  man  of  immense  vitality  and  corresponding  men- 
tality have  but  one,  she  must  necessarily  suffer 
from  the  superabundance  of  his  power,  and  per- 
"^Tiaps,  like  Semele  in  the  too  ardent  embraces  of 
Jove,  may  prove  an  early  victim  to  the  powerful 
demonstrations  of  his  love.  But  even  should  he 
use  the  utmost  tenderness,  and  never  forget  to' 
restrain  his  burning  ardor,  yet,  so  long  as  he  lives 
under  the  system  of  monogamy,  such  a  husband 
must  often  be  the  occasion  of  the  keenest  suffering 
to  a  delicate  woman.  It  is  a  source  of  constant 
pain  and  grief  to  her  that  she   cannot  come  up  to 


OF  MARRIAGE.  221 

her   husband's    capacity,  nor  satisfy  his   conjugal 
requirements.     She  often  tortures  herself  with  the 
thought  that  he  cannot  love  her,  for  she  feels  her- 
self so  much  his  inferior,  and  so  utterly  unworthy 
of  his  love.     She  often  says  that  she  knows  he 
wishes  her  to  die,  that  he  might  marry  another. 
She  wishes  herself  dead.     She  is  madly  jealous 
of    every   other   woman   who    comes   within    the 
circle    of    their    acquaintance,    even    though    her 
husband  may  have  no  fancy  for  her  ;  but  the  poor   \ 
wife  fears  he  may  have,  and  this   constant  fear  is 
worse  than  the  worst  reality.     But,  on  the   other    \ 
hand,  if  he   were   a   polygamist,    and   this   same     / 
woman  were  one  of  his  wives,  she  would  then  be  / 
happy  and  content.     For  she  would  continue   to/ 
receive  from  him  all  the   demonstrations   of  love 
she  is   capable  of  enduring,  while  she  would  joy- 
fully contribute  her  share  towards  completing  the 
capacity   of    his.     Then  it   would   constitute   her 
happiness  to  behold  him  happy,  and  to  enjoy  the 
consciousness  of  having  done  what  she  could  to 
make  him  so.     She  now  rejoices   in  his  abundant 
vitality,  and   is  proud   of    his    superiority.     And 
when  his  manliness,  his  dignity,  and  his  power  are 


222  HISTORY  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

radiated  upon  her  beaming  countenance,  and  re- 
flected thence,  it  is  then  that  her  heart  is  filled  with 
the  utmost  delight  and  satisfaction  of  which  it  is 
susceptible.  Having  become  his  wife,  she  is  so 
entirely  devoted  to  him,  that  she  almost  loses  in 
him  her  own  identity.  She  throws  herself  upon 
his  ample  breast  and  within  his  infolding  arms, 
and  yields  both  her  person  and  her  will  to  his 
control ;  and  she  only  regrets,  when  she  has  given 
up  all,  that  she  has  not  more  to  give. 

"  You  see  me,  Lord  Bassanio,  where  I  stand, 
Such  as  I  am  ;  though  for  myself  alone 
I  would  not  be  ambitious  in  my  wish 
To  wish  myself  much  better ;  yet  for  you, 
I  would  be  trebled  twenty  times  myself; 
A  thousand  times  more  fair,  ten  thousand  times 
More  rich : 

That  only  to  stand  high  on  your  account, 
I  might,  in  virtues,  beauties,  livings,  friends. 
Exceed  account;  but  the  full  sum  of  me 
Is  an  unlessoned  girl,  unschooled,  unpractised ; 
Happy  in  this,  she  is  not  yet  so  old 
But  she  may  learn  ;  and  happier  than  this. 
She  is  not  bred  so  dull  but  she  can  learn  ; 
Happiest  of  all,  is,  that  her  gentle  spirit 
Commits  itself  to  yours  to  be  directed. 
As  from  her  lord,  her  governor,  her  king. 


OF  MARRIAGE.  223 

Myself  and  what  is  mine,  to  you  and  yours 
Is  now  converted  :  but  now  I  was  the  lord 
Of  this  fair  mansion,  master  of  my  servants, 
Queen  o'er  myself;  and  even  now,  but  now. 
This  house,  these  servants,  and  this  same  myself. 
Are  yours,  my  lord  ;  I  give  them  with  this  ring." 

Merchant  of  Venice,  act  iii.  scene  ii. 


APPENDIX. 


When  this  little  book  was  ready  for  the  press,  I 
found,  in  one  of  our  public  libraries,  an  ancient 
work,  in  three  volumes,  on  the  same  subject,  with 
a  formidable  Greek  title,  as  follows :    "  Theljph-N 
thora ;    or,   a  Treatise   on   Female   Ruin,    in   its  i 
Causes,    Effects,    Consequences,    Prevention,  anoN 
Eemedy,"  &c.     Published   by  J.  Dodsley.     Lon-y 
don,  1781.     The  work  is  learned  and  heavy,  yet 
it  passed  through  several  editions,  and  had  evidently 
attracted  attention.     The  author's  name  does  not 
appear  ;  but  it  is  well  known  to  have  been  written 
by  Rev.  Martin  Madan,  D.D.,  Chaplain  of    the 
Lock  Hospital,  London ;   to  the  wardens  and  pa- 
trons of  which  the  work  is  dedicated.     I  have  read 
it  with  much  interest,  and  find  it  to  contain  abun- 
dant confirmation  of  the  views  expressed  in  the 
foregoing  pages. 
224 


APPENDIX.  225 

In  the  preface  to  the  second  edition,  the  author 
says,  "  I  now  conclude  this  preface  with  the  con- 
tents of  a  paper  received  from  a  very  respectable 
clergyman,  who  was  candid  enough  to  let  his  preju- 
dices submit  to  his  judgment,  and  had  honesty 
enough  to  own  it." 

I  transcribe  the  greater  part  of  that  "  paper," 
omitting  such  parts  as  apply  to  England  only,  and 
not  to  America. 

"As  the  subject  of  a  late  publication  entitled 
Thelyphthora,  or  a  Treatise  on  Female  Ruin,  &c., 
is  much  misunderstood  and  misrepresented  by 
many  people,  who  have,  some  of  them,  never  read 
it  at  all,  and  the  rest  but  partially,  and  not  without 
prejudice,  and  therefore  oppose  it,  'tis  judged  best 
to  send  its  opposers  the  following  questions  for 
them  to  answer.  The  doing  of  this,  'tis  thought, 
will  bring  the  matter  to  a  point,  enter  upon  par- 
ticulars, and  be  a  means  to  discover  where  and 
with  whom  truth  is,  and  where  and  with  whom 
error  is. 

"1.  Are  the  mischievous,  shocking  crimes  of 
whoredom,  fornication,  and  adultery  got  to  an  enor- 
mous and  increasing  height  in  the  land,  and  is  the 

15 


226  APPENDIX. 

land  defiled  and  deluged  by  them,  or  not?  and  is 
the  frown  of  God  upon  the  land,  or  is  it  not? 

"  2.  Is  it  needful,  and  is  it  our  bounden  duty,  to 
cry  aloud  against  these  God-provoking  -and  nation- 
ruining  sins,  and  to  seek  a  remedy  against  this 
monstrous  evil,  or  is  it  not  ? 

"  3.  Is  there  any  thing  destructively  horrible  in 
the  lives,  and  any  thing  shockingly  dreadful  in  the 
deaths,  of  abandoned  women,  alias  common  prosti- 
tutes, or  is  there  not  ? 

"4.  What  number,  how  many  thousands,  are 
there  of  these  miserable  creatures  in  our  land  ?  and 
have  they  any  evil  effect  on  the  male  sex,  or  not? 

"5.  Do  our  laws,  as  they  now  stand,  hinder  this 
ruinous  evil,  or  do  they  not  ?  and  can  they,  or  can 
they  not? 

"8.  Is  there  any  remedy  at  all  spoken  of  in 
God's  word  against  the  great  evil  of  lewdness? 
and,  if  there  be,  what  is  that  particular  remedy? 

"  9.  Does  God,  in  his  word,  order  that  whores, 
adulterers,  and  adulteresses  shall  be  put  to  death,  or 
does  he  not?  (See  Lev.  xx.  10  ;  Deut.  xxii.  21,  22.) 

"12.  Is  there  any  particular  recompense  that 
God  in  his  word  orders  an  unmarried  man  to  make 


APPENDIX.  227 

to  a  virgin  whom  he  has  defiled,  or  is  there  not? 
and,  if  there  be,  what  is  it?  (See  Ex.  xxii.  16,  17. ; 
^Deut.  xxii.  28,  29.) 

"  IS.  Is  there  any  particular  recompense  that  a 
married  man  is  enjoined  to  make  the  virgin  whom 
he  has  defiled,  or  is  there  not?  If  there  be,  what 
is  it?  Is  the  virgin  in  the  above  case  to  receive  a 
recompense,  and  the  virgin  in  this  case  to  receive 
none,  and  to  be  abandoned?  (See  the  Scriptures 
above  noted.) 

"  14.  Is  our  marriage-ceremony  in  the  church 
so  of  the  essence  of  marriage  as  to  constitute  mar- 
riage ;  and,  therefore,  none  are  married  in  God's 
sight,  but  what  are  joined  together  l)y  a  priest  with 
that  ceremony? 

"15.  Is  the  marriage  of  the  people  called 
'  Quakers '  in  this  laud  marriage  in  God's  sight  ? 
and  also  according  to  our  laws  ? 

"  17.  In  what  way,  or  by  what  form,  were  all 
those  people  of  old  joined  together,  whose  mar- 
riages are  recorded  in  Scripture  history  ? 

"18.  In  what  way,  or  by  what  form,  were  Chris- 
tians married  for  upwards  of  a  thousand  years 
immediately  after  the  birth  of  Christ  ? 


fhrony  the     .^^ 

ting  mar-         / 
of  popish   / 


228  APPENDIX. 

'     "19.  Was  our  church   marriage-cerehrony  the 
cousequence  of  Pope  Innocent  III.  puttin* 
riage,  as  a  sacrament,  into  the  hands 
priests,  or  was  it  not? 

"  20.  What  reason  can  be  assigned  for  God's 
permitting  so  many  people,  and  particularly  some 
of  his  distinguished  saints  of  old,  to  live  allowedly 
in  the  practice  of  polygamy,  and  to  die  without 
ever  reproving  them,  calling  them  to  repentance, 
and  without  their  ever  expressing  any  sorrow  for 
it,  and  showing  any  evidences  at  all  of  their  re- 
pentance? and  if  God's  word  be  the  rule  of  our 
conduct,  and  if  the  example  of  these  saints  be 
written  for  our  learning,  what  are  we  to  learn  from 
them  respecting  polygamy  ? 

"21.  If  these  saints  of  old  lived  and  died  in  sin^ 
by  living  and  dying  in  the  allowed  practice  of 
polygamy,  what  is  the  name  of  the  sin  ?  By  what 
term  is  it  to  be  distinguished  ?  Was  it  adultery  ? 
or  whoredom?  or  fornication?  Was  their  com- 
merce licit,  or  illicit?  What  commandment  did 
they  sin  against?  Were  they  adulterers,  whore- 
mongers, or  fornicators  ?  What  does  the  Scripture 
history  of  the  lives  and  deaths  of  these  saints  teach 
us  to  call  their  practice? 


APPENDIX.  229 

"  22*i)rWere  Hannah  and  Eachel  and  (after 
Uriah's  death)  Bathsheba  whores  or  adulteresses  ; 
or  were  they  lawful  and  honored  wives  ?  How  are 
they  spoken  of,  and  how  w^ere  they  treated,  as  the 
Scripture  history  informs  us  ? 

"  23.  Were  Joseph,  Samuel,  and  Solomon  bas- 
tards, or  honorable  and  legitimate  sons  ?  In  what 
character  were  they  spoken  of  and  treated?  Did 
God  show  favor  to  them,  or  dislike  of  them  ? 

"  24.  Were  not  Hannah,  Rachel,  and  Bathsheba 
whores  or  adultresses  ;  and  Joseph,  Samuel,  and 
Solomon  bastards,  according  to  the  laws  of  our 
land? 

"26.  In  what  way  can  a  stop  be  put  to  these 
following  ruinous,  detestable,  horrible,  and  nation- 
al evils  ;  namely,  brothel-keeping ;  murdering  of 
infants  by  seduced  women  ;  pregnant  virgins  com- 
mitting of  suicides ;  the  venereal  disease ;  seduc- 
tion ;  prostitution  ;  whoredom  ;  adultery ;  and  all 
the  deplorable  evils  accompanying  and  following 
the  mischievous  sins  of  lewdness  in  this  land?  If 
God's  law  respecting  the  commerce  of  the  sexes 
was  observed,  and  if  the  laws  of  our  land  were  to 
enforce  that,  might  we  not  expect  his  blessing  on 


230  APPENDIX. 

such  means  used  to  accomplish  so  needHii  and  so 
desirable  an  end? 

"  After  these  questions  are  answered,  in  a  plain, 
fair,  and  scriptural  manner,  and  the  answers  are 
honest,  free  from  paltry  subterfuge  and  equivoca- 
tion, we  shall  find  out  whether  the  scheme  in  that 
book  has  a  good  or  a  bad  tendency ;  whether  to  be 
reprobated  or  received  ;  and  whether  the  friends 
and  abettors  of  it  are  friends  or  foes  to  their  coun- 
try, the  cause  of  God,  the  temporal,  spiritual,  and 
eternal  welfare  of  their  fellow-creatures  ?  " 

Another  learned  work,  in  two  octavo  volumes, 
bearing  directly  upon  my  subject,  has  just  now 
(1869)  been  issued  from  the  London  press,  enti- 
tled "  History  of  European  Morals,  from  Augus- 
tus to  Charlemagne.    By  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  M.  A." 

The  preceding  pages  of  "  The  History  and  Phi- 
losophy of  Marriage"  had  all  been  stereotyped 
before  these  elegant  volumes  came  to  hand  ;  and 
it  is  only  in  this  appendix,  and  at  this  last  moment, 
that  I  can  pass  them  under  a  brief  review.  Hav- 
ing spent  fifteen  years  in  the  same  field  of  study, 
with  a  similar  object  in  view,  and  being  well 
aware  of  the  interest  and  importance  of  this  de- 


APPENDIX.  231 

partmeJjibf  history,  I  scarcely  need  to  say  I  have 
read  Mr.  Lecky's  work  with  a  keen  appreciation 
of  its  worth,  which  has  increased  with  each  suc- 
cessive page.  I  cannot  express  my  sincere  admi- 
ration of  the  rare  skill  and  fidelity  with  which  the 
author  has  elaborated  his  theories,  grouped  his 
facts,  and  collated  his  authorities ;  investing  the 
usually  dry  and  abstruse  study  of  moral  philoso- 
phy with  so  much  of  both  pleasure  and  profit  as 
to  unite  the  amusement  of  romance  to  the  instruc- 
tion of  authentic  records.  The  plan  of  my  own 
essay,  to  which  this  notice  is  appended,  being 
much  less  voluminous,  and  less  pretentious,  I 
could  not  introduce  so  many  citations  as  I  often 
wished,  —  an  inability  which  I  need  not  now  re- 
gret, since  this  work  has  appeared,  to  which  I 
can  and  do  hereby  refer.  And  yet  these  volumes 
do  not  seem  to  be  altogether  complete.  They  are 
as  remarkable  for  what  they  omit  as  for  what  they 
contain,  and  suggest  the  question.  Whether  the  dis- 
tinguished author  be  not  too  good  a  philosopher  to 
be,  at  the  same  time,  a  very  good  historian? 
whether  his  fondness  for  speculation  has  not  too 
often    diverted    his    attention    from    a   catesrorical 


2S'2  APPENDIX. 

description  of  the  morals  and  manners  a^he  nu- 
merous tribes,  and  the  long  periods  of  time  em- 
braced within  the  scope  of  his  history?  His 
profound  disquisitions  are  models  of  excellence,  as 
such,  and  are  copiously  illustrated  by  incontestable 
facts  and  authorities ;  but  he  does  not  give  us 
enough  such  disquisitions  to  constitute  together  the 
history  of  the  morals  of  the  given  period.  His 
work  consists  rather  of  some  speculations  on  Eu- 
ropean morals  than  a  history  of  them  during  seven 
centuries.  He  gives  us  admirable  monographs  on 
the  different  schools  of  moral  philosophy,  on  the 
Pagan  persecutions,  on  stoicism,  on  neo-Platonism, 
on  miracles,  on  chastity,  on  asceticism,  on  mona- 
chism,  on  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  on  abortion,  on 
infanticide,  and  exposure  of  children,  &c.,  which  are 
all  very  good  ;  but  he  gives  us  no  similar  sketches 
of  the  history  of  marriage,  of  divorce,  of  adul- 
tery, of  prostitution,  of  monogamy,  of  polygamy, 
of  Paganism,  of  Gnosticism,  of  Catholicism,  of 
Mohammedanism,  &c.,  each  one  of  which  forms 
an  essential  part  of  the  history  of  European  mor- 
als. His  plan  of  philosophical  disquisitions,  also, 
interrupts  and  confounds  all  chronological  order, 


APPENDIX.  233 

and  lea|^  no  room  for  those  biographical  sketches 
of  distinguished  men,  whose  private  lives  give 
moral  tone  and  character  to  the  times  in  which 
they  live,  which  we  always  look  for  in  a  work 
of  history,  and  especially  in  a  history  of  mor- 
als, and  the  want  of  which,  in  these  volumes, 
will  be  esteemed,  by  some  at  least,  as  a  serious 
defect. 

It  happens,  curiously  enough,  that  what  Mr. 
Lecky  has  omitted,  I  have,  in  *'  The  History  and 
Philosophy  of  Marriage,"  in  part  supplied,  per- 
haps in  a  less  satisfactory  manner,  but  with  no  less 
sincere  an  appreciation  of  the  truth,  which  it  be- 
longs to  history  to  disentangle  and  unfold. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  "The  History  of  European 
Morals,"  the  author  seems  to  me  to  degrade  the 
passion  of  love  and  the  institution  of  marriage 
below  their  just  rank  in  the  scale  of  morals,  and 
to  attribute  to  a  life  of  continence  a  higher  sanc- 
tity than  the  facts  which  he  cites  can  warrant. 
(I  quote  from  p.  107,  et  seq.,  vol.  i.) 

"  We  have,"  says  he,  "  an  innate,  intuitive,  in- 
stinctive perception,  that  there,  is  something  degrad- 
ing in  the  sensual  part  of  our  nature  ;  something  to 


234  APPENDIX. 

which  a  feeling  of  shame  is  naturallj^^^aehed ; 
something  that  jars  with  our  conception  of  perfect 
purity ;  something  we  could  not  with  any  propri- 
ety ascribe  to  an  all-holy  Being."  "It  is  this 
feeling,  or  instinct,  which  produces  that  sense  of 
the  sanctity  of  perfect  continence,  which  the  Cath- 
olic Church  has  so  warmly  encouraged,  but  which 
may  be  traced  through  the  most  distant  ages  and 
the  most  various  creeds.  We  find  it  among  the 
Nazarenes  and  the  Essenes  of  Judaja,  among  the 
priests  of  Egypt  and  India,  in  the  monasteries  of 
Tartary,  and  ...  in  the  mythologies  of  Asia." 
"  In  the  midst  of  the  sensuality  of  ancient  Greece, 
chastity  was  the  pre-eminent  attribute  ascribed  to 
Athene  and  Artemis.  '  Chaste  daughter  of  Zeus,* 
prayed  the  suppliants  in  ^schylus,  '  thou  whose 
calm  eye  is  never  troubled,  look  down  upon  us ! 
Virgin,  defend  the  virgins  ! '  "  "  Celibacy  was  an 
essential  condition  in  a  few  orders  of  priests,  and 
in  several  orders  of  priestesses."  ''  Strabo  men- 
tions the  existence  in  Thrace  of  societies  of  men 
aspiring  to  perfection  by  celibacy  and  austere 
lives."  At  Rome,  ..."  we  find  the  traces  of  this 
higher  ideal  in  the  intense  sanctity  attributed  to 
the  vestal  virgins,  ...  in  the  legend  of  Claudia, 
...  in  the  prophetic  gift  so  often  attributed  to 
virgins,  in  the  law  which  sheltered  them  from  an 
execution,  and  in  the  language  of  Statins,  who  de- 
scribed marriage  itself  as  a  fault.  In  Christianity, 
scarcely  any  other  single  circumstance  has  contrib- 
uted so  much  to  the  attraction  of  the  faith  as  the 
ascription  of  virginity  to  the  female  ideal." 

Now,  all  this,  and  a  deal  more,  which  I  need 


APPENDIX.  235 

not  qncy^of  the  same  sort,  only  proves,  that,  in 
respect  of  chastity,  they  frequently  adore  it  most 
who  lack  it  most ;  and,  in  respect  of  love  and  mar- 
riage, that  human  sentiments  are  so  influenced  by 
fashionable  vice,  that  we  are  often  ashamed  of 
what  we  ought  to  be  proud,  and  proud  of  what  we 
ought  to  be  ashamed.  We  possess  such  contradic-  \ 
tory  sentiments  and  such  conflicting  passions,  that  j 
we  need  a  divine  law  to  teach  us  what  is  right  and/ 

\what  is  wrong,  and  what  is  pure  and  what  is  im- 
pure. And  divine  law  has  taught  us  that  marriage 
is  honorable  ;  that  the  normal  exercise  of  love  is 
the  noblest  and  purest  passion  of  the  soul ;  and 
that  the  normal  gratification  of  the  reproductive 
instinct  is  the  highest  function  of  the  body :  and 
those  only  are  ashamed  of  it  who  either  indulge  it 
abnormally  and  sinfully,  or  who  desire  to.     Then,^ 

w  by  the  law  of  association,  this  guilty  impurity  im-  | 
/  parts  its  own  defilement  to  every  act  and  thought  / 
I  of  love,  until  the  passion  itself  seems,  as  it  is  to  y^ 

X.^  them,   degrading  and  impure.     Thus  this  notion 

/    arises,  not  from  its  proper  use,  but  only  from  its 

yabuse  ;  and  the  law  of  increase  ever  remains  the 
primal  law  of  Nature :   nor  is  it  true,  as  he  as- 


236  APPENDIX. 

serts,  that  we  cannot,  with  any  propriety,  ascribe 
it  to  an  "  all-holy  Being."  Our  first  parents  were 
"  all-holy ; "  yet  this  passion  can  be  ascribed  to 
them  with  the  utmost  propriety ;  for  "  God  said 
unto  them,  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  replenish 
the  earth."     "  And  they  were  not  ashamed." 

"  Nor  turned,  I  ween, 
Adam  from  his  fair  spouse ;  nor  Eve  the  rites 
Mj'sterious  of  connubial  love  refused; 
Whatever  hypocrites  austerely  talk 
Of  purity  and  place  and  innocence  ; 
Defaming  as  impure  what  God  declares 
Pure,  and  commands  to  some,  leaves  free  to  all." 

But  our  author's  own  pages  furnish  further  refu- 
tation of  his  theory,  in  his  sketch  of  the  history  of 
asceticism,  which  at  the  same  time  affords  so 
full  and  so  apt  a  confirmation  of  my  assertions  in 
respect  of  the  evil  influences  of  Gnosticism  and 
Platonisra  upon /mediaeval  Christianityi  and  the 
European  marriage-system,  that  I  quote  the  fol- 
lowing from  his  4th  and  5th  chapters,  vol.  ii.  pp. 
108,  119,  138,  340,  363,  &c.  :  — 

"  The  central  conceptions  of  the  monastic  system 
are  the  meritoriousuess  of  complete  abstinence  from 


APPENDIX.  237 

all  sexual4ntercourse,  and  of  complete  renunciation 
of  the  world.  The  first  of  these  notions  appeared 
in  the  very  earliest  period,  in  the  respect  attached 
to  the  condition  of  virginity,  which  was  always 
regarded  as  sacred,  and  especially  esteemed  in  the 
clergy,  though  for  a  long  time  it  was  not  imposed 
as  an  obligation."  "  On  the  outskirts  of  the 
Church,  the  many  sects  of  Grnostics  and  Manicheans 
all  held,  under  different  forms,  the  essential  evil  of 
matter."  *'  The  object  of  the  ascetic  was  to  attract 
men  to  a  life  of  virginity  ;  and,  as  a  necessary  conse- 
quence, marriage  was  treated  as  an  inferior  state." 
"  'To  cut  down  by  the  axe  of  virginity  the  wood 
of  marriage,'  was,  in  the  energetic  language  of  St. 
Jerome,  the  end  of  the  saint."  "  Whenever  any 
strong  religious  fervour  fell  upon  a  husband  or  a 
wife,  its  first  effect  was  to  make  a  happy  union  im- 
possible. The  more  religious  partner  immediately 
desired  to  live  a  life  of  solitary  asceticism."  "  St. 
Nilus,  when  he  had  already  two  children,  was 
seized  with  a  longing  for  the  prevailing  asceticism  ; 
and  his  wife  was  persuaded,  after  many  tears,  to 
consent  to  their  separation.  St.  Ammon,  on  the 
night  of  his  marriage,  proceeded  to  greet  his  bride 
with  an  harangue  upon  the  evils  of  the  married 
state,  and  they  agreed  at  once  to  separate.  St. 
Melania  labored  long  and  earnestly  to  induce  her 
husband  to  allow  her  to  desert  his  bed."  "  St. 
Abraham  ran  away  from  his  wife  on  the  night  of 
his  marriage."  "  Woman  was  represented  as  the 
door  of  hell,  as  the  mother  of  all  human  ills.  She 
should  be  ashamed  at  the  very  thought  that  she  is 
a  woman.  She  should  live  in  continual  penance, 
on  account  of  the  curses  she  has  brought  upon  the 


238  APPENDIX. 

world.  She  should  be  ashamed  of  her  dress  ;  for 
it  is  the  memorial  of  her  fall.  She  should  be  espe- 
cially ashamed  of  her  beauty  ;  for  it  is  the  most 
potent  instrument  of  the  demon."  "To  break  by 
his  ingratitude  the  heart  of  the  mother  who  had 
borne  him,  to  persuade  the  wife  who  adored  him 
that  it  was  her  duty  to  separate  from  him  forever, 
to  abandon  his  children,  was  regarded  by  the  her- 
mit as  the  most  acceptable  oiFering  he  could  make 
to  his  God.'*  "  St.  Simeon  Stylites,  who  had  been 
passionately  loved  by  his  parents,  began  his  saintly 
career  by  breaking  the  heart  of  his  father,  who  died 
of  grief  at  his  flight  to  the  desert.  His  mother, 
twenty-seven  years  after,  when  she  heard,  for  the 
first  time,  where  he  was,  hastened  to  visit  him. 
But  all  her  labor  was  in  vain  :  no  woman  was  ad- 
mitted within  the  precincts  of  his  dwelling ;  and  he 
refused  to  permit  her  even  to  look  upon  his  face." 
"  Three  days  and  three  nights  she  wept  and  en- 
treated in  vain ;  and  exhausted  with  grief,  age, 
and  privation,  she  sank  feebly  to  the  ground,  and 
breathed  her  last  before  his  door.  Then,  for  the 
first  time,  the  saint,  accompanied  by  his  followers, 
came  out.  He  shed  some  pious  tears  over  the 
corpse  of  his  murdered  mother,  and  offered  up  a 
prayer,  consigning  her  soul  to  heaven.  Then, 
amid  the  admiring  murmurs  of  his  disciples,  the 
saintly  matricide  returned  to  his  devotions."  "  He 
had  bound  a  rope  around  him,  so  that  it  had  be- 
come embedded  in  "his  flesh,  which  putrified  around 
it.  A  horrible  stench  exhaled  from  his  body,  and 
worms  dropped  from  him  whenever  he  moved.  He 
built  successively  three  pillars,  the  last  being  sixty 
feet  high,  and  scarcely  three  feet  in  circumference  ; 


APPENDIX.  239 

and  on  this  pillar  he  lived  during  thirty  years,  ex- 
posed to  every  change  of  climate,  ceaselessly  and 
rapidly  bending  his  body  in  prayer  almost  to  the 
level  of  his  feet.  For  one  year,  he  stood  upon  one 
leg,  the  other  being  covered  with  hideous  ulcers  ; 
while  his  biographer  was  commissioned  to  stand 
by  his  side,  and  pick  up  the  worms  that  fell  from 
his  body,  and  replace  them  in  the  sores,  the  saint 
saying  to  the  worm,  '  Eat  what  God  has  given 
you.'  "  "  For  six  months,  St.  Macarius  of  Alex- 
andria slept  in  a  marsh,  and  exposed  his  body, 
naked,  to  the  stings  of  venomous  flies.  He  was 
accustomed  to  carry  about  with  him  eighty  pounds 
of  iron.  His  disciple,  St.  Eusebius,  carried  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pounds  of  iron,  and  lived  for  three 
years  in  a  dried-up  well.  St.  Sabinus  would  only 
eat  corn  that  had  become  rotten  by  remaining  for 
a  month  in  water."  "A  man  named  Mutius,  ac- 
companied by  his  only  child,  a  little  boy  of  eight 
years  old,  once  abandoned  his  possessions,  and  de- 
manded admission  into  a  monastery.  The  monks 
received  him  ;  but  they  proceeded  to  discipline  his 
heart.  His  little  child  was  clothed  in  rags,  beaten, 
spurned,  and  ill  treated.  Day  after  day,  the  father 
was  compelled  to  look  upon  his  boy  wasting  away 
in  sorrow,  his  once  happy  countenance  forever 
stained  with  tears,  distorted  by  sobs  of  anguish. 
But  yet,  says  the  admiring  biographer,  such  was 
his  love  for  Christ,  and  for  the  virtue  of  obedience, 
that  the  father's  heart  was  rigid  and  unmoved." 

"  But  most  terrible  of  all  were  the  struggles  of 
young  and  ardent  men,  through  whose  veins  the 
hot  blood  of  passion  continually  flowed,  physically 
incapable  of  a  life  of  celibacy,  who  were  borne  on 


240  APPENDIX. 

the  wave  of  enthusiasm  to  the  desert  life.  In  the 
arms  of  Syrian  or  African  brides,  whose  soft  eyes 
answered  love  with  love,  they  might  have  sunk  to 
rest ;  but  in  the  lonely  desert  no  peace  could  ever 
visit  their  souls.  Multiplying,  with  frantic  energy, 
the  macerations  of  the  body,  beating  their  breasts 
with  anguish,  the  tears  forever  streaming  from  their 
eyes,  imagining  themselves  continually  haunted  by 
forms  of  deadly  beauty,  their  struggles  not  un- 
frequently  ended  in  insanity  and  in  suicide.  When 
St.  Pachomius  and  St.  Palsemon  were  once  con- 
versing together  in  the  desert,  a  young  monk 
rushed  into  their  presence  in  a  distracted  manner, 
and,  convulsed  with  sobs,  poured  out  his  tale  of 
sorrows.  A  woman  had  entered  his  cell,  and  had 
seduced  him,  and  then  vanished,  leaving  him  half 
dead  upon  the  ground ;  then,  with  a  wild  shriek, 
the  monk  broke  away,  rushed  across  the  desert  till 
he  arrived  at  the  next  village  ;  and  there,  leaping 
into  the  open  furnace  of  the  public  baths,  he  per- 
ished in  the  flames." 

"  In  the  time  of  St.  Cyprian,  before  the  Decian 
persecution,  it  had  been  common  to  find  clergy  pro- 
fessing celibacy,  but  keeping,  under  various  pre- 
texts, their  mistresses  in  their  houses ;  and,  after 
Constantine,  the  complaints  on  this  subject  became 
loud  and  general.  Virgins  and  monks  often  lived 
together  in  the  same  house  ;  and  with  a  curious 
audacity  of  hypocrisy,  which  is  very  frequently 
noticed,  they  professed  to  have  so  overcome  the 
passions  of  their  nature,  that  they  shared  in  chas- 
tity the  same  bed."  "  Noble  ladies,  pretending  a 
desire  to  live  a  life  of  continence,  abandoned  their 
husbands,  to  live  with  low-born  lovers.     Palestine, 


APPENDIX.  241 

which  soon  became  the  centre  of  pilgrimages,  had 
become,  in  the  time  of  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  a 
hot-bed  of  debauchery."  "  There  were  few  towns 
in  Central  Europe,  on  the  way  to  Rome,  in  the 
eighth  century,  where  English  ladies  who  started 
as  pilgrims  were  not  living  in  open  prostitution." 

The  last  chapter  of  this  "  History  of  European 
Morals  "  also  furnishes  a  complete  confirmation  of 
my  own  assertion  {ante  p.  60),  that  the  barbarian 
polygamists  from  Asia,  who  successively  invaded 
Europe,  were  possessed  of  a  higher  social  purity 
than  the  monogamous  Romans,  or  than  they 
themselves .  possessed  after  they  had  adopted  the 
European  system. 

"  In  respect  of  this  virtue  [chastity],  the  various 
tribes  of  barbarians,  however  violent  and  lawless, 
were  far  superior  to  the  more  civilised  community." 
"  The  moral  purity  of  the  barbarians  was  of  a  kind 
altogether  different  from  that  which  the  ascetic 
movement  inculcated.  It  was  concentrated  exclu- 
sively upon  marriage.  It  showed  itself  in  a  noble 
conjugal  fidelity ;  but  it  was  little  fitted  for  a  life 
of  celibacy."  "  The  practice  of  polygamy  among 
the  barbarian  kings  was  also,  for  some  centuries, 
unchecked,  or,  at  least,  unsuppressed,  by  Chris- 
tianity. The  kings  Caribe'rt  and  Chilperic  had 
both  many  wives  at  the  same  time.  Clothaire 
married  the  sister  ,of  his  first  wife  during  the  life- 
time of  the  latter ;  who,  on  the  king  announcing 
16 


242  APPENDIX. 

his  intention  to  her,  is  reported  to  have  said,  '  Let 
my  lord  do  what  seemeth  good  in  his  sight ;  only 
let  thy  servant  live  in  thy  favour.*  St.  Columbaniis 
was  expelled  from  Gaul  chiefly  on  account  of  his 
denunciations  of  the  polygamy  of  King  Thierry. 
Dagobert  had  three  wives,  as  well  as  a  multitude 
of  concubines.  Charlemagne  himself  had,  at  the 
same  time,  two  wives  ;  and  he  indulged  largely  in 
concubines.  After  this  period,  examples  of  this 
nature  became  rare."  '^  But,  notwithstanding  these 
startling  facts,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  gen- 
eral purity  of  the  barbarians  was,  from  the  first, 
superior  to  that  of  the  later  Romans." 

Perhaps  our  learned  author  calls  these  facts 
"  startling,"  because  they  do  not  accord  with  mod- 
ern notions  of  the  superior  purity  of  monogamy 
which  he  seems  to  entertain,  in  common  with  other 
Europeans,  in  spite  of  a  thousand  other  "  facts " 
to  the  contrary  which  his  own  volumes  contain. 
For  example^  in  his  sketch  of  the  morals  of  ancient 
Greece,  the  "facts"  seem  "perplexing"  to  him. 
In  the  heroic  age,  when  polygamy  was  practised, 
the  noblest  types  of  female  virtue  and  excellence 
abounded ;  but  in  the  later  period,  when  the 
"higher  state"  of  monogamy  prevailed,  female 
virtue  experienced  a  sudden  eclipse,  so  dark  and 
total,  and  so  incompatible  with  his  theory  of  the 


APPENDIX.  243 

superior  purity  of  mouogamy,  that  he  expresses 
the  utmost  shame  and  reluctance  in  being  obliged 
to  record  the  evidences  of  its  gross  depravity. 
Hear  what  he  says,  and  pardon  his  errors  in 
theory,  for  they  are  those  of  his  age ;  admire  his 
candor,  and  fidelity  to  facts,  for  they  are  the  high- 
est qualifications  of  an  historian. 

"  It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable,  and,  to  some 
writers,  one  of  the  most  perplexing  facts  in  the 
moral  history  of  Greece,  that,  in  the  former  and 
ruder  period,  women  had  undoubtedly  the  highest 
place,  and  their  type  exhibited  the  highest  perfec- 
tion. Moral  ideas,  in  a  thousand  forms,  have 
been  sublimated,  enlarged,  and  changed  by  advan- 
cing civilisation  ;  but  it  may  be  fearlessly  asserted, 
that  the  types  of  female  excellence  which  are  con- 
tained in  the  Greek  poems,  while  they  are  among 
the  earliest,  are  also  among  the  most  perfect,  in  the 
literature  of  mankind.  The  conjugal  tenderness 
of  Hector  and  Andromache  ;  the  unwearied  fidelity 
of  Penelope,  awaiting  through  tlie  long,  revolving 
years  the  return  of  her  storm-tossed  husband ;  the 
heroic  love  of  Alcestis,  voluntarily  dying,  that  her 
husband  might  live  ;  the  filial  piety  of  Antigone  ; 
the  majestic  grandeur  of  the  death  of  Polyxena  ;  the 
more  saintly  resignation  of  Iphigeuia,  excusing 
with  her  last  breath  the  father  who  had  condemned 
her ;  the  joyous,  modest,  and  loving  Nausicaa, 
whose  figure  shines  like  a  perfect  idyll  among  the 
tragedies  of  the  Odyssey,  —  all  these  are  pictures 


244  APPENDIX. 

of  perennial  beauty  which  Rome  and  Christendom, 
chivalry  and  modern  civilisation,  have  neither 
eclipsed  nor  transcended.  Virgin  modesty  and 
conjugal  fidelity,  the  graces  as  well  as  the  virtues 
of  the  most  perfect  womanhood,  have  never  been 
more  exquisitely  pourtrayed." 

Such  was  the  golden  age  of  polygamy.  INow 
look  on  that  picture,  and  then  on  this,  both  drawn 
by  the  same  hand,  and  that  the  hand  of  a  mono- 
gamist. 

"  In  the  historical  [or  monogamous]  age  of  Greece, 
the  legal  position  of  women  had,  in  some  measure, 
slightly  improved ;  but  their  moral  condition  had 
undergone  a  marked  deterioration.  The  foremost 
and  most  dazzling  type  of  Ionic  womanhood  was 
the  courtesan  ;  and  among  the  males,  at  least,  the 
empire  of  passion  was  almost  unrestricted.  The 
peculiarity  of  G-reek  sensuality  is,  that  it  grew  up, 
for  the  most  part,  uncensured,  and,  indeed,  even 
encouraged,  under  the  eyes  of  some  of  the  most 
illustrious  of  moralists.  If  we  can  imagine  Ninon 
de  I'Enclos,  at  a  time  when  the  rank  and  splendour 
of  Parisian  society  thronged  her  drawing-rooms, 
reckoning  a  Bossuet  or  a  Fenelon  among  her  fol- 
lowers ;  if  we  can  imagine  these  prelates  publicly 
advising  her  about  her  profession,  and  the  means 
of  attaching  the  affections  of  her  lovers,  —  we  shall 
have  conceived  a  relation  like  that  which  existed 
between  Socrates  and  the  courtesan  Tlieodota." 
"  In  the  Greek  civilisation,  legislators  and  moral- 
ists recognised  two  distinct  orders  of  womanhood, 


APPENDIX.  245 

—  the  wife,  whose  first  duty  was  fidelity  to  her  hus- 
band, and  the  het£era,  the  mistress,  who  subsisted 
by  her  fugitive  attachments.  The  wives  lived  in 
almost  absolute  seclusion.  They  were  usually 
married  when  very  young.  The  more  wealthy 
seldom  went  abroad,  and  never,  except  when  ac- 
companied by  a  female  slave  ;  never  attended  the 
public  spectacles  ;  received  no  male  visitors,  except 
in  the  presence  of  their  husbands  ;  and  had  not 
even  a  seat  at  their  own  tables  when  male  guests 
were  there.  Thucydides  doubtless  expressed  the 
prevailing  sentiment  of  his  countrymen  when  he 
said  that  the  highest  merit  of  woman  is  not  to  be 
spoken  of  either  for  good  or  for  evil."  "  The 
names  of  virtuous  women  scarcely  appear  in  Greek 
history."  "  A  few  instances  of  conjugal  and  filial 
affection  have  been  recorded ;  but,  in  general,  the 
only  women  who  attracted  the  notice  of  the  people 
were  the  hetaer^e,  or  courtesans."  "  The  voluptu- 
ous worship  of  Aphrodite  gave  a  kind  of  reli- 
gious sanction  to  their  profession.  Courtesans 
were  the  priestesses  in  her  temples."  "  The  courte- 
san was  the  queen  of  beauty.  She  was  the  model 
of  the  statues  of  Aphrodite,  that  commanded  the 
admiration  of  Greece.  Praxiteles  was  accustomed 
to  reproduce  the  form  of  Phyrne  ;  and  her  statue, 
carved  in  gold,  stood  in  the  temple  of  Apollo." 
"  Apelles  was  at  once  the  painter  and  lover  of 
Lais."  "  The  courtesan  was  the  one  free  woman 
of  Athens ;  and  she  often  availed  herself  of  her 
freedom  to  acquire  a  degree  of  knowledge  which 
enabled  her  to  add  to  her  other  charms  an  intense 
intellectual  fascination."  .  .  .  "My  task  in  describ- 
ing this  aspect  of  Greek  life  has  been  an  eminently 


246  APPENDIX. 

unpleasing  one ;  and  I  should  certainly  not  have 
entered  upon  even  the  baldest  and  most  guarded 
disquisition  on  a  subject  so  difficult,  painful,  and 
delicate,  had  it  not  been  absolutely  indispensable  to 
a  history  of  morals.  What  I  have  written  will 
sufficiently  explain  why  Greece,  which  was  fertile, 
probably,  beyond  all  other  lands,  in  great  men,  was 
so  remarkably  barren  of  great  ^vomen."  "  The  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  that  it  is  criminal  to  gratify  a  power- 
ful and  a  transient  physical  appetite,  except  under 
the  condition  of  a  lifelong  contract,  was  altogether 
unknown."  "  An  aversion  to  marriage  became 
very  general,  and  illicit  connections  were  formed 
with  the  most  perfect  frankness  and  publicity." 

In  support  of  his  opinion,  that  monogamy  is 
a  higher  state  of  morals  than  polygamy,  Mr. 
Lecky,  in  the  final  chapter,  brings  forward  four 
arguments,  which  merit  a  fair  statement. 

"  We  may  regard  monogamy,"  he  says,  "  either 
in  the  light  of  our  intuitive  moral  sentiment  on  the 
subject  of  chastity,  or  in  the  light  of  the  interests 
of  society.  By  the  first,  I  understand  that  univer- 
sal perception  or  conviction  which  I  believe  to  be 
an  ultimate  fact  in  human  nature,  that  the  sensual 
side  of  our  being  is  the  lower  side,  and  some  degree 
of  shame  may  appropriately  be  attached  to  it.  In  its 
Oriental  or  polygamous  stage,  marriage  is  regarded 
almost  exclusively  in  its  sensual  aspect,  as  a  grati- 
fication of  the  animal  passions  ;  while  in  European 
marriages  .  .  .  the  lower  element  has   compara- 


APPENDIX.  247 

lively  little  prominence.  In  this  respect,  it  may- 
be intelligibly  said  that  monogamy  is  a  higher  state 
than  polygamy.  The  utilitarian  arguments  are 
also  extremely  powerful,  and  may  be  summed  up 
in  three  sentences.  Nature,  by  making  the  num- 
ber of  males  and  females  nearly  equal,  indicates  it 
as  natural.  In  no  other  form  of  marriage  can  the 
government  of  the  family  be  so  happily  sustained  ; 
and  in  no  other  does  woman  assume  the  position 
of  the  equal  of  man." 

I  have  already  anticipated  and  considered  the  last 
three  arguments  in  ''  The  History  and  Philosophy 
of  Marriage,"  and  I  have  also  incidentally  touched 
upon  the  first  in  my  examination  of  our  author's 
views  of  chastity  and  continence  ;  but,  as  he  seems 
to  place  great  stress  upon  this  notion,  and  repeats 
it  again  and  again,  I  will  venture  to  offer  another 
word  in  reply.  If  an  enforced  monogamy  be  more 
chaste  than  polygamy,  then,  for  a  stronger  reason, 
an  enforced  celibacy  is  more  chaste  than  monog- 
amy, —  a  conclusion  of  which  his  own  work 
demonstrates  the  absurdity,  as  does  every  other 
respectable  history  of  real  life  in  any  age  or  coun- 
try. I  yield  to  no  one  in  a  most  profound  respect 
for  chastity,  and  in  a  most  sincere  desire  to  pro- 
mote it ;  but  by  as  much  as  I  venerate  true  chas- 


248  APPENDIX. 

tity  by  so  much  do  I  detest  its  counterfeit.     I  have 
demonstrated  that  our  present  system  of  monogamy 
is  a  counterfeit,  stimulating  the   most  loathsome 
vices  of  prostitution  and  hypocrisy ;  and  I  assert 
that   the    only  effectual   manner   in  which    social 
purity  and  honesty  can  be  maintained  is  by  pro- 
moting the  utmost  freedom  to  marry,  and  the  ut- 
most purity  of  marriage.     All  men  are  not  alike^"^ 
Let   there   be    no   Procustean    marriage-bed.      If 
there  are  those  who  are  able  and  willing,  for  the 
love  of  God  and  the  better  service  of  the  Church,  \ 
to  devote  themselves  to  a  voluntary  life  of  honest 
celibacy,  we  respect  and  venerate  them  for  it.     If    ' 
y    there  are  others  who  will  each  honestly  and  cheer- 
^^     fully  content  himself  with  one  wife,  "  and,  forsak-^/^ 
^.  ing  all  others,  keep  himself  only  unto  her  so  long^ 
as  they  both  shall  live,"  at  the  same  time  avoiding 
all  matrimonial  abuse  and  excess,  we  will  respect 
them  but  little  less  than  the  former ;  but,  again,  if 
there  are  others,  whose  measure  of  vitality  is  so 
large  that  they  cannot  and  will  not  be  restricted 
to  a  single  marriage,  or  whose  wives  are  confirmed 
invalids,  and  hopelessly  barren  and  incapable  of 
matrimonial  duty,  —  I  would  not  oblige  these  men 


APPENDIX.  249 

either  to  murder  or  to  divorce  their  present  wives, 
or  to  live  a  life  of  matrimonial  brutality,  or  of  des- 
prerate  licentiousness ;  but  I  would  grant  them  the 
right  to  marry  again,  as  the  best  possible  alternative. 
And  I  insist  that  the  man  who  should  thus  openly 
maintain  his  natural  rights,  and  live  an  honest 
life,  would  still  be  worthy  of  public  confidence  and 
respect.  Such  men,  by  taking  additional  wives, 
would  become  the  most  efficient  public  benefactors, 
by  providing  for  the  otherwise  homeless  and  aban- 
doned women,  and  by  furnishing  the  only  possible 
preventive  of  the  great  social  evil.  The  time  has 
gone  by  for  accepting  the  mere  outward  profession 
of  sanctity  :  we  require  substantial  evidences 
possession  before  we  consent  to  accord 
ants  their  proper  honors.  No  one  can  now  escape 
publicity.  The  almost  omnipresent  reporters  of 
the  press  invade  our  sanctuaries  and  our  bed- 
chambers ;  and  a  bird  of  the  air  shall  carry  the 
matter.  Men  and  women  need  affect  no  purity  or 
sanctity  which  they  do  not  possess.  The  fiat  has 
gone  forth,  "Let  there  be  light;"  and,  in  our 
present  situation,  what  we  most  desire  is  more 
light.     And  Mr.  Lecky  himself,  at  last,  virtually 

R/iwroncT  BANCROFT 


> 

idences  of  its^'^^ 
to  its  claim-    / 


250  APPENDIX. 

admits,  that,  while  monogamy  should  be  the  ideal 
type  of  the  matrimonial  relation,  its  universal, 
honest  observance  is  an  impossibility.  But,  in- 
stead of  recommending  the  pure  and  divinely-sanc- 
tioned freedom  of  polygamy,  he  prefers  to  pander 
to  the  licentious  tendencies  of  a  luxurious  age,  by 
suggesting  the  alternative  of  loose  connections 
with  temporary  mistresses. 

"  The  life-long  union,"  says  he,  "  of  one  man 
and  of  one  woman  should  be  the  normal  or  domi- 
nant type  of  intercourse  between  the  sexes." 
"  But  it  by  no  means  follows,  that,  because  it 
should  be  the  dominant  type,  it  should  be  the  only 
one,  or  that  the  interests  of  society  demand  that 
all  connections  should  be  forced  into  the  same  die. 
Connections  which  are  confessedly  only  for  a  few 
years  have  always  subsisted  side  by  side  with  per- 
manent marriages ;  and  in  periods  when  public 
opinion,  acquiescing  in  their  propriety,  inflicts  no 
excommunication  on  one  or  both  of  the  partners 
when  these  partners  are  not  living  the  demoralis- 
ing and  degrading  life  which  accompanies  the  con- 
sciousness of  guilt,  and  when  proper  provision  is 
made  for  the  children  who  are  born,  it  would  be, 
I  believe,  impossible  to  prove,  by  the  light  of  sim- 
ple and  unassisted  reason,  that  such  connections 
should  be  invariably  condemned.  It  is  extremely 
important,  both  for  the  happiness  and  for  the  moral 
well-being  of  men,  that  life-long  unions  should  not 
be  effected  simply  under  the  prompting  of  a  blind 


APPENDIX.  251 

appetite.  There  are  always  multitudes,  who,  in 
the  period  of  their  lives  when  their  passions  are 
most  strong,  are  incapable  of  supporting  children 
in  their  own  social  rank,  and  who  would  therefore 
injure  society  by  marrying  in  it,  but  are,  never- 
theless, perfectly  capable  of  securing  an  honorable 
career  for  their  illegitimate  children  in  the  lower 
social  sphere  to  which  they  would  naturally  belong. 
Under  the  conditions  I  have  mentioned,  these  con- 
nections are  not  injurious,  but  beneficial,  to  the 
weaker  partner  ;  they  soften  the  diiferences  of  rank, 
they  stimulate  social  habits,  and  they  do  not  pro- 
duce upon  character  the  degrading  effect  of  pro- 
miscuous intercourse,  or  upon  society  the  injurious 
effects  of  imprudent  marriages,  one  or  the  other  of 
which  will  multiply  in  their  absence.  In  the  im- 
mense variety  of  circumstances  and  characters, 
cases  will  always  appear  in  which,  on  utilitarian 
grounds,  they  might  seem  advisable." 

Thus,  at  last,  this  fashionable  vice  has  lifted  the 
mask  of  hypocrisy  a  little,  and  found  a  voice,  and 
spoken  for  itself.  And  I  have  given  ample  space 
and  full  expression  to  these  arguments  for  monog- 
amy, of  which  this  form  of  prostitution,  or  some 
worse  one,  is  a  necessary  part,  requesting  my  op- 
ponents to  reciprocate  this  favor  of  placing  their 
arguments  side  by  side  with  mine,  and  entreating 
the  Public  to  judge  between  them,  and,  before 
awarding  judgment,  to   be  sure  to  hear  the  other 


252  APPENDIX. 

side.  If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  Holy  Bible,  it 
teaches  the  innocence  of  polygamy,  and  the  sinful- 
ness of  every  form  of  sexual  indulgence  not 
guarded  by  a  life-long  marriage.  If  there  is  any 
truth  in  history,  it  teaches  the  innate  impurity  of 
enforced  monogamy,  —  an  impurity  which  has  al- 
ways increased  with  the  increase  of  wealth  and 
the  advance  of  civilization  ;  which  perverted  Chris- 
tianity itself  is  powerless  to  prevent ;  which  has 
corrupted  and  wasted  many  nations ;  and  into 
which  we  are  drifting  with  inevitable  certainty, 
and  from  which  nothing  but  an  extension  of  the 
benefits  and  the  safeguards  of  marriage  can  ever  de- 
liver us,  —  all  which  propositions  are  demonstrated 
in  "  The  History  and  Philosophy  of  Marriage." 

I  beg  leave  to  refer,  also,  to  a  recent  work  enti- 
tled "  An  Historical  Sketch  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy 
in  the  Christian  Church.  By  H.  C.  Lea."  Phila- 
delphia :  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co.,  1867. 

This  is  a  vafuable  repertory  of  authentic  re- 
corded facts,  cited  from 

"  Many  a  quaint  and  curious  volume  of  forgotten  lore," 

confirming  the  views  advanced  in  "  The  History 


APPENDIX.  253 

and  Philosophy  of  Marriage  "  in  respect  of  the 
degrading  influences  of  the  Roman  system  of  re- 
stricted marriage,  from  which  I  have  proved  our 
European  monogamy  to  have  been  derived.  I 
earnestly  commend  this  book  to  the  attention  of 
every  student  of  moral  philosophy,  and  to  that  of 
every  Christian  philanthropist. 

Conybeare  and  Howson's  "  Life  and  Epistles  of    ) 
St.  Paul "  contains  the  following  note  on  1  Tim. 
iii.  2,   concerning  the    ''  one  wife "  of  a  bishop, 
which  I  place  alongside  of  Dr.  McKnight's  (page  "^ 
72).     It  also  confirms  my  own   statements  in  the  J 
chapter  on  the  origin  of  monogamy.  v 

"  In  the  corrupt  facility  of  divorce  allowed  both 
by  the  Greek  and  Roman  law,  it  was  very  common 
for  man  and  wife  to  separate,  and  marry  other 
parties,  during  the  life  of  one  another.  Thus  a 
man  might  have  three  or  four  living  wives  ;  or 
rather  women  who  had  all  successively  been  his 
wives.  ...  A  similar  code  is  [now]  unhappily  to 
be  found  in  Mauritius  ;  tliere  ...  it  is  not  un- 
common to  meet  in  society  three  or  four  women 
who   have  all  been  the  wives  of  the  same  man. 

We  believe  it  is  this  kind  of  successive  polyg-^N 
amy,  rather  than  simultaneous  polygamy,  which  is  j 
here  spoken  of  as  disqualifying  for  the  Presbyter-y 
ate.     So  Beza." 


I E"  D  E  X. 


Abortion,  195 ;  monogamy  causes, 
198. 

Asceticism,  131;  Lecky's  sketch 
of,  237. 

Acta,  mistress  of  Nero,  113, 180. 

Adultery,  defined  and  discussed. 

Agrippina's  incest  with  Cali- 
gula, 105  ;  her  marriage  to 
Claudius,  110;  her  former  mar- 
riages, 111. 

Amorous  passions  more  intense, 
in  men  than  in  women,  62,  169, 
171. 

Anthon,  Dr.  C,  quoted,  80,  83. 

Art,  inspired  by  love,  31. 

Augustus  and  his  four  wives,  91; 
his  profligacy,  96. 

Barrenness,  caused  by  monoga- 
my, 82,  204;  is  a  curse,  yet  our 
women  desire  it,  200;  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, 205. 

Baxley,  Dr.,  "What  he  saw  in 
Lima,"  138. 

Bible,  the,  teaches  polygamy,  63; 
defines  adultery,  183. 

Bishop,  a,  one  wife  of,  71,  253. 

Bulwer's  History  of  Athens,  80. 

Birth-rate,  in  Massachusetts,  204. 

Caesar,  Julius,  and  his  four  wives, 
88;  divorces  Pompeia,  89;  his 
profligacy,  90. 

Csesonia,  wife  of  Caligula,  104, 
106. 

Caligula  and  his  four  wives,  101, 
102;  incest  with  his  sisters,  103, 
105;  licenses  prostitutes,  105. 

Catholicism,  its  antiquity  and  im- 


mutability, 136;  its  vices,  137, 
157. 

Celibacy  of  priests,  &c.,  arose 
from  Gnosticism  and  neo-Pla- 
tonism,  127;  causes  licentious- 
ness, 138,  240. 

Chastity,  tarnished  by  divorce, 
18;  of  polygamists,  60,241;  re- 
quired of  women  alone  by 
Greeks  and  Romans,  79,  94. 

Civilization  indebted  to  love,  31. 

Claudius  and  his  six  wives,  99, 
107. 

Clodius  the  infamous,  87,  89. 

Conjugal  love  in  men  and  women, 
217. 

Constantine  and  Licinius,  129. 

Conybeare  and  Howson's  St. 
Paul,  253. 

Councils  of  the  Church,  127, 132. 

Cowper,  "William,  quoted,  176, 
185. 

David  a  polj'gamist,  64, 193. 

Divorce,  forbidden  by  the  Bible, 
18;  frequent  among  the  Ro- 
mans, 82;  is  dishonorable,  187; 
caused  by  monogamy,  189 ;  of 
Henry  VIII.,  and  of  Napoleon, 
192;  of  Tamar,  193. 

"  Ecce  Homo,"  quoted,  158. 
Ennia,  mistress  of  Caligula,  102. 

Fecundity,  to  be  promoted,  199 ; 

a  divine  blessing,  200. 
Foljambe,  Rev.  S.  "W.,  quoted, 

65. 
Froude  on  monachism,  148, 

254 


INDEX. 


255 


"Gail  Hamilton"  on  marriage, 
52. 

Gnosticism,  60,  122;  encourages 
celibacy,  138. 

Great  men  are  polygamists,  172. 

Greece,  superior  type  of  women 
in  its  polygamous  period,  243; 
the  open  sensuality  of  its  mo- 
nogamous period,  244. 

Harlot's  progress,  the,  163. 
Henry  II.  and  "  Fair  Rosamond," 

189. 
Henry    "VTH.,  and    the   English 

Church,  146 ;  his  six  wives,  188 ; 

divorce  of  Catharine,  191. 
Herod  Antipas,  his  adultery,  70. 
Herod  the  Great,  and  his  nine 

wives,  71. 
Home,    woman's    sphere,    161; 

many  women  have  none,  162, 

213. 
Hypocrisy  of  monogamy,  175. 

Idolatry  and  monogamy,  59. 

Impurity  of  monogamy,  79,  151, 
244. 

Infidelity,  caused  by  our  preju- 
dices against  the  polygamy  of 
the  Bible,  65. 

Jealousy,  does  polygamy  cause 
it?  208. 

Jesus  did  not  abolish  or  change 
marriage-laws,  69. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  on  ridicul- 
ing love,  35. 

Josephine's  divorce,  192. 

Josephus  on  polygamy  of  Herod, 
71. 

Julia,  daughter  of  Caesar,  88. 

Julia,  daughter  of  Augustus,  93. 

Keightley,  "History  of  Roman 
Empire,"  55,  88 ;  his  character 
of  Augustus,  97;  of  Tiberius, 
101;  on  Gnosticism,  133;  on 
the  errors  of  Roman  Church, 
136. 

Laws,  divine,  natural,  and  civil, 
26;  of  marriage  are  perpetual, 
68;  levirate,  75. 

Lea's  "  Sacerdotal  Celibacy,"  252. 


Lecky's  "History  of  European 
Morals,"  230. 

Licentiousness,  of  clergy,  134, 138, 
148 ;  of  Greece,  open  and  ap- 
proved, 244. 

Liddell's,  Dr.,  character  of  Cae- 
sar, 90;  of  Augustus,  97. 

Lima,  "  What  I  saw  there,"  Bax- 
ley,  138. 

Literature,  inspired  by  love,  31. 

Livia  Drusilla,  wife  of  Augustus, 
92. 

Livia  Orestilla,  wife  of  Caligula, 
103. 

Locusta  poisons  Claudius,  111; 
and  Britannicus,  114. 

Lollia  Paullina,  wife  of  Caligula, 
104. 

Love,  defined,  28;  refining,  29; 
the  birthright  of  all,  32;  in- 
spires literature  and  art,  31 ;  its 
gratification  longed  for,  33 ;  ben- 
eficial, 35;  licentious,  forbid- 
den, 37 ;  its  relation  to  marriage, 
38,  43. 

Luther's  doctrines,  and  his  prac- 
tice, 146. 

McKnight's  Commentary,  72. 

Madan's  "  Thelyphthora,"  225. 

Marriage,  defined,  40;  its  bene- 
fits, 41;  relations  to  love,  43; 
few  women  decline  it,  51 ;  pre- 
vented by  monogamy,  53;  cere- 
mony of,  55;  not  changed  by 
the  New  Testament,  68;  Ro- 
man, 82;  began  to  be  forbidden 
to  the  clergy  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, 127 ;  necessary  to  women, 
150;  prevents  crime,  178;  de- 
graded by  religious  ascetics, 
237. 

Marriageable  age  of  women,  47. 

Massachusetts,  statistics  of,  47, 
49,  204. 

Mediaeval  immorality,  133. 

Men  and  women,  comparative 
number  of,  47. 

Merivale's  "  History  of  Romans," 
quoted,  54,  81. 

Messalina's  lust  and  cruelty,  107- 
109. 

Milton,  John,  quoted,  3,  39,  201, 
214,  236. 


256 


INDEX. 


Missionaries  do  not  treat  polyga- 
my uniformly,  17-21. 

Monx)gamy,  defined,  40;  prevents 
marriage,  44,  53;  cannot  exist 
with  idolatry,  59;  of  bishops, 
71,  253;  origin  of,  78;  Greek 
and  Roman,  79;  of  the  Caesars, 
84;  as  it  is  to-day,  144;  causes 
seduction,  159;  causes  chastity 
and  religion  to  be  hated,  166; 
brutality  of,  169 ;  hypocrisy  of, 
175;  arguments  for,  examined, 
247. 

Montanus,  his  doctrines,  126. 

Morality  of  polygamy,  73,  242. 

Morals,  impure,  of  monogamy, 
82,  152. 

Mosheim,  quoted,  125,  133. 

Murder,  caused  by  monogamy, 
186. 

Mutius  and  his  boy,  239. 

Neo-Platonism,  126. 

Napoleon's  divorce  of  Josephine, 

192. 
Nero's  seven  marriages,  112. 
Nuns  and  nunneries,  149. 

Origen's  Gnosticism  and  mutila- 
tion, 126. 

Passions,  the  intensity  of,  171, 

Philanthropy,  higher  law  of,  153. 

Plurality  of  husbands,  216. 

Polygamy,  defined,  10,  63;  little 
known,  10;  prejudices  against, 
10, 23, 57 ;  has  always  been  prac- 
tised, 11;  challenges  examina- 
tion, 12;  objections  to  it  an- 
swered, 46,  208;  origin  of,  61; 
not  barbarism,  58,  61;  gives 
every  woman  a  husband  and  a 
home,  62;  taught  in  the  Bible, 
63 ;  of  David,  64 ;  God  attests  its 
innocence,  64;  before  Moses, 
68;  morality  of,  73;  of  early 
Christians,  74;  commanded  by 
the  Bible,  75. 

Polygamists,  converted,  17;  their 
chastity,  60, 241 ;  great  men  are, 


172;    are   public   benefactors, 

249. 
Prostitutes,  licensed  by  Caligula, 

105;  and  now  in  France,  153. 
Prostitution  a  necessary  part  of 

monogamy,  151,  251. 

Religion  hated  by  monogamists, 
167,  170. 

Roman  marriages,  infrequent,  54; 
not  permanent,  81. 

Roman  Catholics  more  consistent 
than  Protestants  in  their  mo- 
nogamy, 147. 

Roman  Catholicism,  its  origin, 
136;  governs  Protestants  still, 
144. 

Sex,  moral   differences    of,  215, 

216. 
Simeon  Stylites,  the  saint,  238. 
Statistics  given,  45-49,  204. 
Strabo  on  Corinthian  morals,  80. 

"  Thelyphthora  "  of  Dr.  Madan, 

225. 
Theodosius  abolishes  paganism, 

130. 
Tiberius,  his  marriages  and  vices, 

98-100. 
Truth  to  be  loved  and  followed, 

24, 145. 

Virtue  of  polygamists,  60,  241, 
243. 

Woman,  why  God  made  but  one, 
62;  called  by  ascetics,  the  door 
of  hell,  237;  her  sphere,  161; 
her  love  and  man's,  different, 
217;  her  dependence,  natural 
and  honorable,  209. 

Women,  often  denied  the  right  of 
marriage,  44;  more  numerous 
than  men,  45 ;  marriageable  age 
of,  49;  are  superior  to  men  in 
some  things,  215;  are  less  am- 
orous than  men,  29,  62,  169. 

Women's  rights,  158,  210. 

Women's  wrongs,  157. 


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